PS 


PRIVATE  LIBRARY 

— OF— 

JOHN    P.   DORR. 

No - 

PLEASE    RETURN  AFTER   READING. 


ANNEX  TO  LEAVES  OF  GRASS 


PHILADELPHIA 

DAVID  McKAY,  PUBLISHER 

23  SOUTH  NINTH  STREET 

1891 


COPYRIGHT  1891 
BY  WALT    WHITMAN 

All  rights  reserved 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE  NOTE  TO  20  ANNEX,  5 
GOOD- BYE  MY  FANCY: 
Sail  Out  for  Good,  Eid6lon  Yacht, 

7 

Lingering  Last  Drops,  7 
Good-Bye  my  Fancy,  7 
On,    on    the    Same,    ye    Jocund 

Twain,  8 
My  7  ist  Year,  8 
Apparitions,  8 
The  Pallid  Wreath,  9 
An  Ended  Day,  9 
Old  Age's  Ship  and  Crafty  Death's, 

10 

To  the  Pending  Year,  10 
Shakspere-Bacon's  Cipher,  10 
Long,  Long  Hence,  10 
Bravo,  Paris  Exposition,  II 
Interpolation  Sounds,  II 
To  the  Sunset  Breeze,  12 

AN  OLD  MAN'S  REJOINDER,  21 
OLD  POETS,  24 
SHIP  AHOY!   28 


Old  Chants,  12 

A  Christmas  Greeting,  13 

Sounds  of  the  Winter,  13 

A  Twilight  Song,  14 

When  the  Full-grown  Poet  Came, 

H 

Osceola,  15 

A  Voice  from  Death,  15 
A  Persian  Lesson,  16 
The  Commonplace,  17 
"  The  Rounded  Catalogue  Divine 

Complete,"  17 
Mirages,  18 
L.  of  G.'s  Purport,  1 8 
The  Unexpress'd,  19 
Grand  is  the  Seen,  19 
Unseen  Buds,  19 
Good-Bye  my  Fancy,  20 


FOR  QUEEN  VICTORIA'S  BIRTHDAY,  28 


(3) 


4  CONTENTS. 

AMERICAN  NATIONAL  LITERATURE,  29 
GATHERING  THE  CORN,  35 
A  DEATH  BOUQUET,  37 
SOME  LAGGARDS  YET: 


The  Perfect  Human  Voice,  39 
Shakspere  for  America,  39 
"Unassail'd  Renown,"  40 
Inscription  for  a  Little  Book  on 

Giordano  Bruno,  41 
Splinters,  41 

MEMORANDA : 

A  World's  Show,  45 

New    York— the     Bay— the    Old 

Name,  45 
A  Sick  Spell,  46 
To  be  Present  Only,  47 
"  Intestinal  Agitation,"  47 
"  Walt  Whitman's  Last «  Public,'  " 

47 

IngersolPs  Speech,  49 
Feeling  Fairly,  50 
Old  Brooklyn  Days,  50 


Health  (Old  Style),  42 

Gay-heartedness,  43 

As  in  a  Swoon,  44 

L.  of  G.,  44 

After  the  Argument,  44 

For  Us  Two,  Reader  Dear,  44 


Two  Questions,  51 

Preface  to  a  Volume,  51 

An  Engineer's  Obituary,  53 

Old  Actors,  Singers,  Shows,  etc., 

in  New  York,  55 

Some  Personal  and  Old  Age  Jot 
tings,  59 

Out  in  the  Open  Again,  64 
America's  Bulk  Average,  64 
Last  Saved  Items,  65 


PREFACE  NOTE  TO  2d  ANNEX, 

CONCLUDING   L.    OF   G.  — 1891. 

HAD  I  not  better  withhold  (in  this  old  age  and  paralysis  of 
me)  such  little  tags  and  fringe-dots  (maybe  specks,  stains,)  as 
follow  a  long  dusty  journey,  and  witness  it  afterward  ?  I  have 
probably  not  been  enough  afraid  of  careless  touches,  from  the 
first — and  am  not  now — nor  of  parrot-like  repetitions — nor  plati 
tudes  and  the  commonplace.  Perhaps  I  am  too  democratic  for 
such  avoidances.  Besides,  is  not  the  verse-field,  as  originally 
plann'd  by  my  theory,  now  sufficiently  illustrated — and  full  time 
for  me  to  silently  retire  ? — (indeed  amid  no  loud  call  or  market 
for  my  sort  of  poetic  utterance.) 

In  answer,  or  rather  defiance,  to  that  kind  of  well-put  inter 
rogation,  here  comes  this  little  cluster,  and  conclusion  of  my 
preceding  clusters.  Though  not  at  all  clear  that,  as  here  col 
lated,  it  is  worth  printing  (certainly  I  have  nothing  fresh  to 
write) — I  while  away  the  hours  of  my  ^26.  year — hours  of  forced 
confinement  in  my  den — by  putting  in  shape  this  small  old  age 
collation : 

Last  droplets  of  and  after  spontaneous  rain, 

From  many  limpid  distillations  and  past  showers ; 

(Will  they  germinate  anything?  mere  exhalations  as  they  all  are — 

the  land's  and  sea's — America's ; 
Will  they  filter  to  any  deep  emotion  ?  any  heart  and  brain  ?) 

However  that  may  be,  I  feel  like  improving  to-day's  oppor 
tunity  and  wind  up.  During  the  last  two  years  I  have  sent  out, 
in  the  lulls  of  illness  and  exhaustion,  certain  chirps — lingering- 
dying  ones  probably  (undoubtedly) — which  now  I  may  as  well 
gather  and  put  in  fair  type  while  able  to  see  correctly — (for  my 
eyes  plainly  warn  me  they  are  dimming,  and  my  brain  more  and 
more  palpably  neglects  or  refuses,  month  after  month,  even  slight 
tasks  or  revisions.) 

In  fact,  here  I  am  these  current  years  1890  and  '91,  (each 
successive  fortnight  getting  stiffer  and  stuck  deeper)  much  like 
some  hard-cased  dilapidated  grim  ancient  shell-fish  or  time- 
bang' d  conch  (no  legs,  utterly  non-locomotive)  cast  up  high  and 

(5) 


6  PREFACE  NOTE  TO  2d  ANNEX. 

dry  on  the  shore-sands,  helpless  to  move  anywhere — nothing  left 
but  behave  myself  quiet,  and  while  away  the  days  yet  assign' d, 
and  discover  if  there  is  anything  for  the  said  grim  and  time- 
bang' d  conch  to  be  got  at  last  out  of  inherited  good  spirits  and 
primal  buoyant  centre-pulses  down  there  deep  somewhere  within 

his  gray-blurr'd  old  shell (Reader,  youmust  allowalittle 

fun  here — for  one  reason  there  are  too  many  of  the  following 
poemets  about  death,  &c.,  and  for  another  the  passing  hours 
(July  5,  1890)  are  so  sunny-fine.  And  old  as  I  am  I  feel  to-day 
almost  a  part  of  some  frolicsome  wave,  or  for  sporting  yet  like  a 
kid  or  kitten — probably  a  streak  of  physical  adjustment  and  per 
fection  here  and  now.  I  believe  I  have  it  in  me  perennially 
anyhow.) 

Then  behind  all,  the  deep-down  consolation  (it  is  a  glum  one, 
but  I  dare  not  be  sorry  for  the  fact  of  it  in  the  past,  nor  refrain 
from  dwelling,  even  vaunting  here  at  the  end)  that  this  late-years 
palsied  old  shorn  and  shell-fish  condition  of  me  is  the  indubitable 
outcome  and  growth,  now  near  for  20  years  along,  of  too  over- 
zealous,  over-continued  bodily  and  emotional  excitement  and 
action  through  the  times  of  1862,  '3,  '4  and  '5,  visiting  and 
waiting  on  wounded  and  sick  army  volunteers,  both  sides,  in 
campaigns  or  contests,  or  after  them,  or  in  hospitals  or  fields  south 
of  Washington  City,  or  in  that  place  and  elsewhere — those  hot, 
sad,  wrenching  times — the  army  volunteers,  all  States, — or  North 
or  South — the  wounded,  suffering,  dying — the  exhausting,  sweat 
ing  summers,  marches,  battles,  carnage — those  trenches  hurriedly 
heap'd  by  the  corpse-thousands,  mainly  unknown — Will  the 
America  of  the  future — will  this  vast  rich  Union  ever  realize 
what  itself  cost,  back  there  after  all  ? — those  hecatombs  of  bat 
tle-deaths — Those  times  of  which,  O  far-off  reader,  this  whole 
book  is  indeed  finally  but  a  reminiscent  memorial  from  thence 
by  me  to  you  ? 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


SAIL  OUT  FOR   GOOD,   EIDOLON   YACHT! 

HEAVE  the  anchor  short ! 

Raise  main-sail  and  jib — steer  forth, 

0  little  white-hull' d  sloop,  now  speed  on  really  deep  waters, 
(I  will  not  call  it  our  concluding  voyage, 

But  outset  and  sure  entrance  to  the  truest,  best,  maturest ;) 
Depart,  depart  from  solid  earth — no  more  returning  to  these 

shores, 

Now  on  for  aye  our  infinite  free  venture  wending, 
Spurning  all  yet  tried  ports,  seas,  hawsers,  densities,  gravitation, 
Sail  out  for  good,  eidolon  yacht  of  me ! 

LINGERING  LAST  DROPS. 
AND  whence  and  why  come  you  ? 

We  know  not  whence,  (was  the  answer,) 

We  only  know  that  we  drift  here  with  the  rest, 

That  we  linger'd  and  lagg'd — but  were  wafted  at  last,  and  are 

now  here, 
To  make  the  passing  shower's  concluding  drops. 

GOOD-BYE   MY   FANCY. 

GOOD-BYE*  my  fancy — (I  had  a  word  to  say, 

But  'tis  not  quite  the  time — The  best  of  any  man's  word  or  say, 

Is  when  its  proper  place  arrives — and  for  its  meaning, 

1  keep  mine  till  the  last.) 

*  Behind  a  Good-bye  there  lurks  much  of  the  salutation  of  another  be 
ginning — to  me,  Development,  Continuity,  Immortality,  Transformation,  are 
the  chiefest  life-meanings  of  Nature  and  Humanity,  and  are  the  sine  qua ' 
non  of  all  facts,  and  each  fact. 

Why  do  folks  dwell  so  fondly  on  the  last  words,  advice,  appearance,  of  the 
departing  ?  Those  last  words  are  not  samples  of  the  best,  which  involve 
vitality  at  its  full,  and  balance,  and  perfect  control  and  scope.  But  they  are 
valuable  beyond  measure  to  confirm  and  endorse  the  varied  train,  facts,  theo 
ries  and  faith  of  the  whole  preceding  life. 

(7) 


8  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

ON,   ON  THE   SAME,   YE  JOCUND  TWAIN! 

ON,  on  the  same,  ye  jocund  twain  ! 

My  life  and  recitative,,  containing  birth,  youth,  mid-age  years, 

Fitful  as  motley-tongues  of  flame,  inseparably  twined  and  merged 

in  one — combining  all, 
My  single  soul — aims,  confirmations,  failures,  joys — Nor  single 

soul  alone, 
I  chant  my  nation's  crucial  stage,  (America's,  haply  humanity's) 

— the  trial  great,  the  victory  great, 
A  strange   eclaircissement  of  all  the   masses  past,   the   eastern 

world,  the  ancient,  medieval, 
Here,  here  from  wanderings,  strayings,  lessons,  wars,  defeats — 

here  at  the  west  a  voice  triumphant — justifying  all, 
A  gladsome  pealing  cry — a  song  for  once  of  utmost  pride  and 

satisfaction ; 
I  chant  from  it  the  common  bulk,  the  general  average  horde, 

(the  best  no  sooner  than  the  worst) — And  now  I  chant  old 

age, 
(My  verses,  written  first  for  forenoon  life,  and  for  the  summer's, 

autumn's  spread, 

I  pass  to  snow-white  hairs  the  same,  and  give  to  pulses  winter- 
cool' d  the  same ;) 
As  here  in  careless  trill,  I  and  my  recitatives,  with  faith  and 

love, 

Wafting  to  other  work,  to  unknown  songs,  conditions, 
On,  on,  ye  jocund  twain  !    continue  on  the  same  ! 

MY   7 ist  YEAR. 

AFTER  surmounting  three-score  and  ten, 

With  all  their  chances,  changes,  losses,  sorrows, 

My  parents'  deaths,   the  vagaries  of  my  life,   the  many  tearing 

passions  of  me,  the  war  of  '63  and  '4, 
As  some  old  broken  soldier,  after  a  long,  hot,  wearying  march, 

or  haply  after  battle, 
To-day  at  twilight,  hobbling,  answering  company  roll-call,  Here, 

with  vital  voice, 
Reporting  yet,  saluting  yet  the  Officer  over  all. 

APPARITIONS. 

A  VAGUE  mist  hanging  'round  half  the  pages : 
(Sometimes  how  strange  and  clear  to  the  soul, 
That  all  these  solid  things  are  indeed  but  apparitions,  concepts, 
non-realities.) 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  g 

THE  PALLID   WREATH. 

SOMEHOW  I  cannot  let  it  go  yet,  funeral  though  it  is, 

Let  it  remain  back  there  on  its  nail  suspended, 

With  pink,  blue,  yellow,  all  blanch' d,  and  the  white  now  gray 

and  ashy, 

One  wither' d  rose  put  years  ago  for  thee,  dear  friend ; 
But  I  do  not  forget  thee.     Hast  thou  then  faded  ? 
Is  the  odor  exhaled  ?     Are  the  colors,  vitalities,  dead  ? 
No,  while  memories  subtly  play — the  past  vivid  as  ever ; 
For  but  last  night  I  woke,  and  in  that  spectral  ring  saw  thee, 
Thy  smile,  eyes,  face,  calm,  silent,  loving  as  ever  : 
So  let  the  wreath  hang  still  awhile  within  my  eye-reach, 
It  is  not  yet  dead  to  me,  nor  even  pallid. 

AN  ENDED  DAY. 

THE  soothing  sanity  and  blitheness  of  completion, 
The  pomp  and  hurried  contest-glare  and  rush  are  done ; 
Now  triumph  !  transformation  !  jubilate  !  * 

*  NOTE. — Summer  country  life. — Several  years. — In  my  rambles  and  explo 
rations  I  found  a  woody  place  near  the  creek,  where  for  some  reason  the  birds 
in  happy  mood  seem'd  to  resort  in  unusual  numbers.  Especially  at  the 
beginning  of  the  day,  and  again  at  the  ending,  I  was  sure  to  get  there  the 
most  copious  bird-concerts.  I  repair'd  there  frequently  at  sunrise — and  also 
at  sunset,  or  just  before  .  .  .  Once  the  question  arose  in  me  :  Which  is  the  best 
singing,  the  first  or  the  lattermost?  The  first  always  exhilarated,  and  perhaps 
seem'd  more  joyous  and  stronger;  but  I  always  felt  the  sunset  or  late  after 
noon  sounds  more  penetrating  and  sweeter — seem'd  to  touch  the  soul — often 
the  evening  thrushes,  two  or  three  of  them,  responding  and  perhaps  blending. 
Though  I  miss'd  some  of  the  mornings,  I  found  myself  getting  to  be  quite 
strictly  punctual  at  the  evening  utterances. 

ANOTHER  NOTE. — "  He  went  out  with  the  tide  and  the  sunset,"  was  a 
phrase  I  heard  from  a  surgeon  describing  an  old  sailor's  death  under  pecu 
liarly  gentle  conditions. 

During  the  Secession  War,  1863  and  '4,  visiting  the  Army  Hospitals  around 
Washington,  I  form'd  the  habit,  and  continued  it  to  the  end,  whenever  the  ebb 
or  flood  tide  began  the  latter  part  of  day,  of  punctually  visiting  those  at 
that  time  populous  wards  of  suffering  men.  Somehow  (or  I  thought  so)  the 
effect  of  the  hour  was  palpable.  The  badly  wounded  would  get  some  ease, 
and  would  like  to  talk  a  little,  or  be  talk'd  to.  Intellectual  and  emotional 
natures  would  be  at  their  best :  Deaths  were  always  easier;  medicines  seem'd 
to  have  better  effect  when  given  then,  and  a  lulling  atmosphere  would 
pervade  the  wards. 

Similar  influences,  similar  circumstances  and  hours,  day-close,  after  great 
battles,  even  with  all  their  horrors.  I  had  more  than  once  the  same  expe 
rience  on  the  fields  cover'd  with  fallen  or  dead. 


10  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

OLD   AGE'S   SHIP  &   CRAFTY   DEATH'S. 

FROM  east  and  west  across  the  horizon's  edge, 

Two  mighty  masterful  vessels  sailers  steal  upon  us  : 

But  we  '11  make  race  a-time  upon  the  seas — a  battle-contest  yet! 

bear  lively  there  ! 

(Our  joys  of  strife  and  derring-do  to  the  last !) 
Put  on  the  old  ship  all  her  power  to-day ! 
Crowd  top-sail,  top-gallant  and  royal  studding-sails, 
Out  challenge  and  defiance — flags  and  flaunting  pennants  added, 
As  we  take  to  the  open — take  to  the  deepest,  freest  waters. 

TO   THE   PENDING  YEAR. 

HAVE  I  no  weapon-word,  for  thee  —  some  message  brief  and 

fierce  ? 
(Have  I  fought  out  and  done  indeed  the  battle  ?)  Is  there  no  shot 

left, 

For  all  thy  affectations,  lisps,  scorns,  manifold  silliness  * 
Nor  for  myself — my  own  rebellious  self  in  thee  ? 

Down,  down,  proud  gorge  ! — though  choking  thee ; 

Thy  bearded   throat   and  high-borne  forehead  to  the  gutter; 

Crouch  low  thy  neck  to  eleemosynary  gifts. 

SHAKSPERE-BACON'S   CIPHER. 

I  DOUBT  it  not — then  more,  far  more  ; 

In  each  old  song  bequeath' d — in  every  noble  page  or  text, 

(Different  —  something    unreck'd    before  —  some    unsuspected 

author,) 
In  every  object,  mountain,  tree,  and  star — in  every  birth  and 

life, 
As  part  of  each — evolv'd  from  each — meaning,  behind  the  os- 

tent, 
A  mystic  cipher  waits  infolded. 

LONG,  LONG  HENCE. 

AFTER  a  long,  long  course,  hundreds  of  years,  denials, 

Accumulations,  rous'd  love  and  joy  and  thought, 

Hopes,  wishes,   aspirations,   ponderings,  victories,   myriads  of 

readers, 

Coating,  compassing,  covering — after  ages'   and  ages'  encrus 
tations, 
Then  only  may  these  songs  reach  fruition. 


GOOD-B  YE  MY  FANCY.  I  j 

BRAVO,  PARIS  EXPOSITION! 

ADD  to  your  show,  before  you  close  it,  France, 

With  all  the  rest,  visible,  concrete,  temples,  towers,  goods,  ma 
chines  and  ores, 

Our  sentiment  wafted  from  many  million  heart-throbs,  ethereal 
but  solid, 

(We  grand-sons  and  great -grand-sons  do  not  forget  your  grand- 
sires,) 

From  fifty  Nations  and  nebulous  Nations,  compacted,  sent  over 
sea  to-day, 

America's  applause,  love,  memories  and  good-will. 

INTERPOLATION  SOUNDS. 

[General  Philip  Sheridan  was  buried  at  the  Cathedral,  Washington,  D.  C., 
August,  1888,  with  all  the  pomp,  music  and  ceremonies  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
service.]  * 

OVER  and  through  the  burial  chant, 

Organ  and  solemn  service,  sermon,  bending  priests, 

To  me  come  interpolation  sounds  not  in  the  show — plainly  to 

me,  crowding  up  the  aisle  and  from  the  window, 
Of  sudden  battle's  hurry  and  harsh  noises — war's  grim  game  to 

sight  and  ear  in  earnest ; 
The  scout  call'd  up  and  forward — the  general  mounted  and  his 

aids  around  him — the  new-brought  word — the  instantaneous 

order  issued ; 
The  rifle  crack — the  cannon  thud — the  rushing  forth  of  men 

from  their  tents ; 
The  clank  of  cavalry — the  strange  celerity  of  forming  ranks — 

the  slender  bugle  note  ; 

The  sound  of  horses'  hoofs  departing — saddles,  arms,  accoutre 
ments. 

*NOTE.— CAMDEN,  N.  J.,  August  7,  1888.— Walt  Whitman  asks  the  New 

York  Herald  "  to  add  his  tribute  to  Sheridan :  " 

"  In  the  grand  constellation  of  five  or  six  names,  under  Lincoln's  Presi 
dency,  that  history  will  bear  for  ages  in  her  firmament  as  marking  the  last 
life-throbs  of  secession,  and  beaming  on  its  dying  gasps,  Sheridan's  will  be 
bright.  One  consideration  rising  out  of  the  now  dead  soldier's  example  as 
it  passes  my  mind,  is  worth  taking  notice  of.  If  the  war  had  continued  any 
long  time  these  States,  in  my  opinion,  would  have  shown  and  proved  the 
most  conclusive  military  talents  ever  evinced  by  any  nation  on  earth.  That 
they  possess' d  a  rank  and  file  ahead  of  all  other  known  in  points  of  quality 
and  limitlessness  of  number  are  easily  admitted.  But  we  have,  too,  the  eligi 
bility  of  organizing,  handling  and  officering  equal  to  the  other.  These  two, 
with  modern  arms,  transportation,  and  inventive  American  genius,  would  make 
the  United  States,  with  earnestness,  not  only  able  to  stand  the  whole  world, 
but  conquer  that  world  united  against  us." 


12  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

TO  THE  SUN-SET   BREEZE. 

AH,  whispering,  something  again,  unseen, 

Where  late  this  heated  day  thou  enterest  at  my  window,  door, 

Thou,  laving,  tempering  all,  cool-freshing,  gently  vitalizing 

Me,  old,  alone,  sick,  weak-down,  melted-worn  with  sweat ; 

Thou,  nestling,  folding  close  and  firm  yet  soft,  companion  bet 
ter  than  talk,  book,  art, 

(Thou  hast,  O  Nature  !  elements  !  utterance  to  my  heart  beyond 
the  rest — and  this  is  of  them,) 

So  sweet  thy  primitive  taste  to  breathe  within — thy  soothing 
fingers  on  my  face  and  hands, 

Thou,  messenger-magical  strange  bringer  to  body  and  spirit  of 
me, 

(Distances  balk'd — occult  medicines  penetrating  me  from  head 
to  foot,) 

I  feel  the  sky,  the  prairies  vast — I  feel  the  mighty  northern 
lakes, 

I  feel  the  ocean  and  the  forest — somehow  I  feel  the  globe  itself 
swift-swimming  in  space ; 

Thou  blown  from  lips  so  loved,  now  gone — haply  from  endless 
store,  God-sent, 

(For  thou  art  spiritual,  Godly,  most  of  all  known  to  my 
sense,) 

Minister  to  speak  to  me,  here  and  now,  what  word  has  never 
told,  and  cannot  tell, 

Art  thou  not  universal  concrete's  distillation  ?  Law's,  all  As 
tronomy's  last  refinement? 

Hast  thou  no  soul  ?     Can  I  not  know,  identify  thee  ? 

OLD   CHANTS. 

AN  ancient  song,  reciting,  ending, 

Once  gazing  toward  thee,  Mother  of  All, 

Musing,  seeking  themes  fitted  for  thee, 

Accept  for  me,  thou  saidst,  the  elder  ballads, 

And  name  for  me  before  thou  goest  each  ancient  poet. 

(Of  many  debts  incalculable, 

Haply  our  New  World's  chieftest  debt  is  to  old  poems.) 

Ever  so  far  back,  preluding  thee,  America, 
Old  chants,  Egyptian  priests,  and  those  of  Ethiopia, 
The  Hindu  epics,  the  Grecian,  Chinese,  Persian, 
The   Biblic  books  and  prophets,  and  deep  idyls  of  the  Naza- 
rene, 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  !$ 

The  Iliad,  Odyssey,  plots,  doings,  wanderings  of  Eneas, 

Hesiod,  Eschylus,  Sophocles,  Merlin,  Arthur, 

The  Cid,  Roland  at  Roncesvalles,  the  Nibelungen, 

The  troubadours,  minstrels,  minnesingers,  skalds, 

Chaucer,  Dante,  flocks  of  singing  birds, 

The  Border  Minstrelsy,  the  bye-gone  ballads,  feudal  tales,  essays, 

plays, 

Shakspere,  Schiller,  Walter  Scott,  Tennyson, 
As  some  vast  wondrous  weird  dream-presences, 
The  great  shadowy  groups  gathering  around, 
Darting  their  mighty  masterful  eyes  forward  at  thee, 
Thou  !  with  as  now  thy  bending  neck  and  head,  with  courteous 

hand  and  word,  ascending, 
Thou  !  pausing  a  moment,  drooping  thine  eyes  upon  them,  blent 

with  their  music, 

Well  pleased,  accepting  all,  curiously  prepared  for  by  them, 
Thou  enterest  at  thy  entrance  porch. 

A  CHRISTMAS  GREETING. 
From  a   Northern  Star- Group  to  a  Southern.     1889-' 90. 

WELCOME,  Brazilian  brother — thy  ample  place  is  ready ; 

A  loving  hand — a  smile  from  the  north — a  sunny  instant  hail ! 

(Let  the  future  care  for  itself,  where  it  reveals  its  troubles,  im- 

pedimentas, 
Ours,  ours  the  present  throe,  the  democratic  aim,  the  acceptance 

and  the  faith ;) 
To  thee  to-day  our  reaching  arm,  our  turning  neck — to  thee 

from  us  the  expectant  eye, 

Thou  cluster  free !  thou  brilliant  lustrous  one !  thou,  learning  well, 
The  true  lesson  of  a  nation's  light  in  the  sky, 
(More  shining  than  the  Cross,  more  than  the  Crown,) 
The  height  to  be  superb  humanity. 

SOUNDS  OF  THE  WINTER. 

SOUNDS  of  the  winter  too, 

Sunshine  upon  the  mountains — many  a  distant  strain 

From  cheery  railroad  train — from  nearer  field,  barn,  house, 

The  whispering  air — even  the  mute  crops,  garner' d  apples,  corn, 

Children's  and  women's  tones — rhythm  of  many  a  farmer  and 

of  flail, 
An  old  man's  garrulous  lips  among  the  rest,   Think  not  we  give 

out  yet. 
Forth  from  these  snowy  hairs  we  keep  up  yet  the  lilt. 


14  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

A  TWILIGHT  SONG. 

As  I  sit  in  twilight  late  alone  by  the  flickering  oak-flame, 
Musing  on  long-pass'd  war-scenes — of  the  countless  buried  un 
known  soldiers, 
Of  the  vacant  names,  as  unindented  air's  and  sea's — the  un- 

return'd, 
The  brief  truce  after  battle,  with  grim  burial- squads,  and  the 

deep-fill'd  trenches 
Of  gather' d  dead  from  all  America,  North,  South,  East,  West, 

whence  they  came  up, 

From  wooded  Maine,  New-England's  farms,  from  fertile  Penn 
sylvania,  Illinois,  Ohio, 
From  the  measureless  West,  Virginia,  the  South,  the  Carolinas, 

Texas, 
(Even  here  in  my  room-shadows  and  half-lights  in  the  noiseless 

flickering  flames, 
Again  I   see   the  stalwart  ranks  on-filing,  rising — I   hear  the 

rhythmic  tramp  of  the  armies  ;) 
You  million  unwrit  names  all,  all — you  dark  bequest  from  all  the 

war, 
A  special  verse  for  you — a  flash  of  duty  long  neglected — your 

mystic  roll  strangely  gather'd  here, 
Each  name  recall 'd  by  me  from  out  the  darkness  and  death's 

ashes, 
Henceforth  to  be,  deep,  deep  within  my  heart  recording,  for 

many  a  future  year, 
Your   mystic    roll    entire   of   unknown    names,   or    North   or 

South, 
Embalm' d  with  love  in  this  twilight  song. 


WHEN  THE  FULL-GROWN  POET  CAME. 

WHEN  the  full-grown  poet  came, 

Out  spake  pleased  Nature  (the  round  impassive  globe,  with  all 
its  shows  of  day  and  night,)  saying,  He  is  mine ; 

But  out  spake  too  the  Soul  of  man,  proud,  jealous  and  unrec 
onciled,  Nay,  he  is  mine  alone ; 

— Then  the  full-grown  poet  stood  between  the  two,  and  took 
each  by  the  hand ; 

And  to-day  and  ever  so  stands,  as  blender,  uniter,  tightly  hold 
ing  hands, 

Which  he  will  never  release  until  he  reconciles  the  two, 

And  wholly  and  joyously  blends  them. 


GOOD-BYE  HY  FANCY.  15 

OSCEOLA. 

[When  I  was  nearly  grown  to  manhood  in  Brooklyn,  New  York,  (middle 
of  1838,)  I  met  one  of  the  return'd  U.  S.  Marines  from  Fort  Moultrie,  S.  C., 
and  had  long  talks  with  him — learn'd  the  occurrence  below  described — death 
of  Osceola.  The  latter  was  a  young,  brave,  leading  Seminole  in  the  Florida 
war  of  that  time — was  surrender'd  to  our  troops,  imprison'd  and  literally  died 
of  "  a  broken  heart,"  at  Fort  Moultrie.  He  sicken'd  of  his  confinement — 
the  doctor  and  officers  made  every  allowance  and  kindness  possible  for  him  • 
then  the  close  :] 

WHEN  his  hour  for  death  had  come, 

He  slowly  rais'd  himself  from  the  bed  on  the  floor, 

Drew  on  his  war-dress,  shirt,   leggings,   and   girdled  the  belt 

around  his  waist, 
Call'd  for  vermilion  paint  (his  looking-glass  was  held  before 

him,) 

Painted  half  his  face  and  neck,  his  wrists,  and  back-hands. 
Put  the  scalp-knife  carefully  in  his  belt — then  lying  down,  resting 

a  moment, 
Rose  again,  half  sitting,  smiled,  gave  in  silence  his  extended 

hand  to  each  and  all, 
Sank  faintly  low  to  the  floor  (tightly  grasping  the  tomahawk 

handle,) 
Fix'd  his  look  on  wife  and  little  children — the  last : 

(And  here  a  line  in  memory  of  his  name  and  death.) 

A  VOICE  FROM   DEATH. 
(The  Johnstown,  Penn.,  cataclysm,  May  31,  1889.) 

A  VOICE  from  Death,  solemn  and  strange,  in  all  his  sweep  and 

power, 
With  sudden,  indescribable  blow — towns  drown'd — humanity  by 

thousands  slain, 
The  vaunted  work  of  thrift,  goods,  dwellings,  forge,  street,  iron 

bridge, 

Dash'd  pell-mell  by  the  blow — yet  usher'd  life  continuing  on, 
(Amid  the  rest,  amid  the  rushing,  whirling,  wild  debris, 
A  suffering  woman  saved — a  baby  safely  born  !) 

Although  I  come  and  unannounc'd,  in  horror  and  in  pang, 

In  pouring  flood  and  fire,  and  wholesale  elemental  crash,  (this 

voice  so  solemn,  strange,) 
I  too  a  minister  of  Deity. 

Yea,  Death,  we  bow  our  faces,  veil  our  eyes  to  thee, 
We  mourn  the  old,  the  young  untimely  drawn  to  thee, 
The  fair,  the  strong,  the  good,  the  capable, 


!6  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

The  household  wreck'd,  the  husband  and  the  wife,  the  engulf 'd 

forger  in  his  forge, 

The  corpses  in  the  whelming  waters  and  the  mud, 
The  gather 'd  thousands  to  their  funeral  mounds,  and  thousands 

never  found  or  gather' d. 

Then  after  burying,  mourning  the  dead, 

(Faithful  to  them  found  or  unfound,  forgetting  not,  bearing  the 

past,  here  new  musing,) 

A  day — a  passing  moment  or  an  hour — America  itself  bends  low, 
Silent,  resign'd,  submissive. 

War,  death,  cataclysm  like  this,  America, 
Take  deep  to  thy  proud  prosperous  heart. 

E'en  as  I  chant,  lo  !  out  of  death,  and  out  of  ooze  and  slime, 
The  blossoms  rapidly  blooming,  sympathy,  help,  love, 
From  West  and  East,  from  South  and  North  and  over  sea, 
Its  hot-spurr'd  hearts  and  hands  humanity  to  human  aid  moves  on; 
And  from  within  a  thought  and  lesson  yet. 

Thou  ever-darting  Globe  !  through  Space  and  Air ! 

Thou  waters  that  encompass  us  ! 

Thou  that  in  all  the  life  and  death  of  us,  in  action  or  in  sleep ! 

Thou  laws  invisible  that  permeate  them  and  all, 

Thou   that   in   all,  and  over  all,  and   through  and   under  all, 

incessant  ! 
Thou  !  thou !  the  vital,  universal,  giant  force  resistless,  sleepless, 

calm, 

Holding  Humanity  as  in  thy  open  hand,  as  some  ephemeral  toy, 
How  ill  to  e'er  forget  thee ! 

For  I  too  have  forgotten, 

(Wrapt  in  these  little   potencies  of  progress,  politics,  culture, 

wealth,  inventions,  civilization,) 
Have   lost  my  recognition  of  your  silent  ever-swaying   power, 

ye  mighty,  elemental  throes, 
In  which  and  upon  which  we  float,  and  every  one  of  us  is 

buoy'd. 


A  PERSIAN  LESSON. 

FOR  his  o'erarching  and  last  lesson  the  greybeard  sufi, 

In  the  fresh  scent  of  the  morning  in  the  open  air, 

On  the  slope  of  a  teeming  Persian  rose-garden, 

Under  an  ancient  chestnut-tree  wide  spreading  its  branches, 

Spoke  to  the  young  priests  and  students. 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  !7 

"  Finally  my  children,  to  envelop  each  word,  each  part  of  the 

rest, 

Allah  is  all,  all,  all — is  immanent  in  every  life  and  object, 
May-be  at  many  and  many-a-more  removes — yet  Allah,  Allah, 

Allah  is  there. 

"Has  the  estray  wander'd  far?     Is  the  reason-why  strangely 

hidden  ? 

Would  you  sound  below  the  restless  ocean  of  the  entire  world  ? 
Would  you  know  the  dissatisfaction  ?  the  urge  and  spur  of  every 

life; 
The  something  never  still'd — never  entirely  gone?  the  invisible 

need  of  every  seed  ? 

"  It  is  the  central  urge  in  every  atom, 

(Often  unconscious,  often  evil,  downfallen,) 

To  return  to  its  divine  source  and  origin,  however  distant, 

Latent  the  same  in  subject  and  in  object,  without  one  exception." 

THE   COMMONPLACE. 

THE  commonplace  I  sing ; 

How  cheap  is  health  !  how  cheap  nobility  ! 

Abstinence,  no  falsehood,  no  gluttony,  lust ; 

The  open  air  I  sing,  freedom,  toleration, 

(Take  here  the  mainest  lesson — less  from  books — less  from  the 

schools,) 

The  common  day  and  night — the  common  earth  and  waters, 
Your  farm — your  work,  trade,  occupation, 
The  democratic  wisdom  underneath,  like  solid  ground  for  all. 

"THE  ROUNDED   CATALOGUE   DIVINE   COMPLETE." 

[Sunday, . — Went  this  forenoon  to  church.     A  college  profes 
sor,  Rev.  Dr. ,  gave  us  a  fine  sermon,  during  which  I  caught  the  above 

words ;  but  the  minister  included  in  his  "  rounded  catalogue  "  letter  and  spirit, 
only  the  esthetic  things,  and  entirely  ignored  what  I  name  in  the  following :] 

THE  devilish  and  the  dark,  the  dying  and  diseas'd, 

The  countless  (nineteen-twentieths)   low  and   evil,  crude   and 

savage, 

The  crazed,  prisoners  in  jail,  the  horrible,  rank,  malignant, 
Venom  and  filth,  serpents,  the  ravenous  sharks,  liars,  the  disso 
lute; 
(What  is  the  part  the  wicked  and  the  loathesome  bear  within 

earth's  orbic  scheme  ?) 

Newts,  crawling  things  in  slime  and  mud,  poisons, 
The  barren  soil,  the  evil  men,  the  slag  and  hideous  rot. 


1 8  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

MIRAGES. 

(Noted  verbatim  after  a  supper-talk  outdoors  in  Nevada  -with,  two  old  miners.} 

MORE  experiences  and  sights,  stranger,  than  you'd  think  for; 

Times  again,  now  mostly  just  after  sunrise  or  before  sunset, 

Sometimes  in  spring,  oftener  in  autumn,  perfectly  clear  weather, 
in  plain  sight, 

Camps  far  or  near,  the  crowded  streets  of  cities  and  the  shop- 
fronts, 

(Account  for  it  or  not — credit  or  not — it  is  all  true, 

And  my  mate  there  could  tell  you  the  like — we  have  often  con 
fab' d  about  it,) 

People  and  scenes,  animals,  trees,  colors  and  lines,  plain  as  could 
be, 

Farms  and  dooryards  of  home,  paths  border' d  with  box,  lilacs 
in  corners, 

Weddings  in  churches,  thanksgiving  dinners,  returns  of  long- 
absent  sons, 

Glum  funerals,  the  crape-veil'd  mother  and  the  daughters, 

Trials  in  courts,  jury  and  judge,  the  accused  in  the  box, 

Contestants,  battles,  crowds,  bridges,  wharves, 

Now  and  then  mark'd  faces  of  sorrow  or  joy, 

(I  could  pick  them  out  this  moment  if  I  saw  them  again,) 

Show'd  to  me  just  aloft  to  the  right  in  the  sky-edge, 

Or  plainly  there  to  the  left  on  the  hill-tops. 

L.  OF  G.'S  PURPORT. 

NOT  to  exclude  or  demarcate,  or  pick  out  evils  from  their  formid 
able  masses  (even  to  expose  them,) 

But  add,  fuse,  complete,  extend — and  celebrate  the  immortal  and 
the  good. 

Haughty  this  song,  its  words  and  scope, 

To  span  vast  realms  of  space  and  time, 

Evolution — the  cumulative — growths  and  generations. 

Begun  in  ripen'd  youth  and  steadily  pursued, 

Wandering,   peering,  dallying  with  all — war,  peace,   day  and 

night  absorbing, 

Never  even  for  one  brief  hour  abandoning  my  task, 
I  end  it  here  in  sickness,  poverty,  and  old  age. 

I  sing  of  life,  yet  mind  me  well  of  death : 

To-day  shadowy   Death  dogs  my  steps,  my  seated  shape,  and 

has  for  years — 
Draws  sometimes  close  to  me,  as  face  to  face. 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  19 

THE  UNEXPRESS'D. 

How  dare  one  say  it  ? 

After  the  cycles,  poems,  singers,  plays, 

Vaunted  Ionia's,  India's— Homer,  Shakspere — the  long,  long 
times'  thick  dotted  roads,  areas, 

The  shining  clusters  and  the  Milky  Ways  of  stars — Nature's 
pulses  reap'd, 

All  retrospective  passions,  heroes,  war,  love,  adoration, 

All  ages'  plummets  dropt  to  their  utmost  depths, 

All  human  lives,  throats,  wishes,  brains — all  experiences'  utter 
ance  ; 

After  the  countless  songs,  or  long  or  short,  all  tongues,  all  lands, 

Still  something  not  yet  told  in  poesy's  voice  or  print — something 
lacking, 

(Who  knows  ?  the  best  yet  unexpress'd  and  lacking.) 

GRAND  IS  THE  SEEN. 

GRAND  is  the  seen,  the  light,  to  me — grand  are  the  sky  and 
stars, 

Grand  is  the  earth,  and  grand  are  lasting  time  and  space, 

And  grand  their  laws,  so  multiform,  puzzling,  evolutionary ; 

But  grander  far  the  unseen  soul  of  me,  comprehending,  endow 
ing  all  those, 

Lighting  the  light,  the  sky  and  stars,  delving  the  earth,  sailing 
the  sea, 

(What  were  all  those,  indeed,  without  thee,  unseen  soul  ?  of 
what  amount  without  thee  ?) 

More  evolutionary,  vast,  puzzling,  O  my  soul ! 

More  multiform  far — more  lasting  thou  than  they. 


UNSEEN  BUDS. 

UNSEEN  buds,  infinite,  hidden  well, 

Under  the  snow  and  ice,  under  the  darkness,  in  every  square  or 

cubic  inch, 

Germinal,  exquisite,  in  delicate  lace,  microscopic,  unborn, 
Like  babes  in  wombs,  latent,  folded,  compact,  sleeping  • 
Billions  of  billions,  and  trillions  of  trillions  of  them  waiting, 
(On  earth  and  in  the  sea — the  universe — the  stars  there  in  the 

heavens,) 

Urging  slowly,  surely  forward,  forming  endless, 
And  waiting  ever  more,  forever  more  behind. 


20  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

GOOD-BYE   MY   FANCY! 

GOOD-BYE  my  Fancy  ! 

Farewell  dear  mate,  dear  love  ! 

I'm  going  away,  I  know  not  where, 

Or  to  what  fortune,  or  whether  I  may  ever  see  you  again, 

So  Good-bye  my  Fancy. 

Now  for  my  last — let  me  look  back  a  moment ; 
The  slower  fainter  ticking  of  the  clock  is  in  me, 
Exit,  nightfall,  and  soon  the  heart-thud  stopping. 

Long  have  we  lived,  joy'd,  caress'd  together ; 
Delightful  ! — now  separation — Good-bye  my  Fancy. 

Yet  let  me  not  be  too  hasty, 

Long  indeed  have  we  lived,  slept,  filter'd,  become  really  blended 

into  one ; 

Then  if  we  die  we  die  together,  (yes,  we'll  remain  one,) 
If  we  go  anywhere  we'll  go  together  to  meet  what  happens, 
May-be  we'll  be  better  off  and  blither,  and  learn  something, 
May-be  it  is  yourself  now  really  ushering  me  to  the  true  songs, 

(who  knows  ?) 
May-be  it  is  you  the  mortal  knob  really  undoing,  turning — so 

now  finally, 
Good-bye — and  hail !  my  Fancy. 


AN  OLD  MAN'S  REJOINDER. 

IN  the  domain  of  Literature  loftily  consider'd  (an  accom- 
plish'd  and  veteran  critic  in  his  just  out  work*  now  says,)  'the 
kingdom  of  the  Father  has  pass'd ;  the  kingdom  of  the  Son  is 
passing;  the  kingdom  of  the  Spirit  begins.'  Leaving  the  reader 
to  chew  on  and  extract  the  juice  and  meaning  of  this,  I  will 
proceed  to  say  in  melanged  form  what  I  have  had  brought  out 
by  the  English  author's  essay  (he  discusses  the  poetic  art  mostly) 
on  my  own,  real,  or  by  him  supposed,  views  and  purports.  If  I 
give  any  answers  to  him,  or  explanations  of  what  my  books  in 
tend,  they  will  be  not  direct  but  indirect  and  derivative.  Of 
course  this  brief  jotting  is  personal.  Something  very  like  queru 
lous  egotism  and  growling  may  break  through  the  narrative  (for 
I  have  been  and  am  rejected  by  all  the  great  magazines,  carry 
now  my  y2d  annual  burden,  and  have  been  a  paralytic  for  18 
years.) 

No  great  poem  or  other  literary  or  artistic  work  of  any  scope, 
old  or  new,  can  be  essentially  consider'd  without  weighing  first 
the  age,  politics  (or  want  of  politics)  and  aim,  visible  forms, 
unseen  soul,  and  current  times,  out  of  the  midst  of  which  it  rises 
and  is  formulated :  as  the  Biblic  canticles  and  their  days  and 
spirit — as  the  Homeric,  or  Dante's  utterance,  or  Shakspere's,  or 
the  old  Scotch  or  Irish  ballads,  or  Ossian,  or  Omar  Khayyam. 
So  I  have  conceiv'd  and  launch' d,  and  work'd  for  years  at,  my 
'  Leaves  of  Grass ' — personal  emanations  only  at  best,  but  with 
specialty  of  emergence  and  background — the  ripening  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  thought  and  fact  and  radiation  of  indi 
viduality,  of  America,  the  Secession  war,  and  showing  the  demo 
cratic  conditions  supplanting  everything  that  insults  them  or 
impedes  their  aggregate  way.  Doubtless  my  poems  illustrate 
(one  of  novel  thousands  to  come  for  a  long  period)  those  con 
ditions  ;  but  '  democratic  art '  will  have  to  wait  long  before  it  is 
satisfactorily  formulated  and  defined — if  it  ever  is. 

*  Two  new  volumes,  '  Essays  Speculative  and  Suggestive,'  by  John  Ad- 
dington  Symonds.  One  of  the  Essays  is  on  'Democratic  Art,'  in  which  I 
and  my  books  are  largely  alluded  to  and  cited  and  dissected.  It  is  this  part 
of  the  vols.  that  has  caused  the  off-hand  lines  above — (first  thanking  Mr.  S.  for 
his  invariable  courtesy  of  personal  treatment). 

(21) 


22  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

I  will  now  for  one  indicative  moment  lock  horns  with  what 
many  think  the  greatest  thing,  the  question  of  art,  so-call'd.  I 
have  not  seen  without  learning  something  therefrom,  how,  with 
hardly  an  exception,  the  poets  of  this  age  devote  themselves, 
always  mainly,  sometimes  altogether,  to  fine  rhyme,  spicy  ver 
balism,  the  fabric  and  cut  of  the  garment,  jewelry,  concetti,  style, 
art.  To-day  these  adjuncts  are  certainly  the  effort,  beyond  all 
else.  Yet  the  lesson  of  Nature  undoubtedly  is,  to  proceed  with 
single  purpose  toward  the  result  necessitated,  and  for  which  the 
time  has  arrived,  utterly  regardless  of  the  outputs  of  shape,  ap 
pearance  or  criticism,  which  are  always  left  to  settle  themselves. 
I  have  not  only  not  bother' d  much  about  style,  form,  art,  etc., 
but  confess  to  more  or  less  apathy  (I  believe  I  have  sometimes 
caught  myself  in  decided  aversion)  toward  them  throughout, 
asking  nothing  of  them  but  negative  advantages — that  they 
should  never  impede  me,  and  never  under  any  circumstances, 
or  for  their  own  purposes  only,  assume  any  mastery  over  me. 

From  the  beginning  I  have  watch' d  the  sharp  and  sometimes 
heavy  and  deep-penetrating  objections  and  reviews  against  my 
work,  and  I  hope  entertain'd  and  audited  them;  (for  I  have 
probably  had  an  advantage  in  constructing  from  a  central  and 
unitary  principle  since  the  first,  but  at  long  intervals  and  stages 
— sometimes  lapses  of  five  or  six  years,  or  peace  or  war.)  Ruskin, 
the  Englishman,  charges  as  a  fearful  and  serious  lack  that  my 
poems  have  no  humor.  A  profound  German  critic  complains 
that,  compared  with  the  luxuriant  and  well-accepted  songs  of  the 
world,  there  is  about  my  verse  a  certain  coldness,  severity,  ab 
sence  of  spice,  polish,  or  of  consecutive  meaning  and  plot. 
(The  book  is  autobiographic  at  bottom,  and  may-be  I  do  not 
exhibit  and  make  ado  about  the  stock  passions :  I  am  partly  of 
Quaker  stock.)  Then  E.  C.  Stedman  finds  (or  found)  mark'd 
fault  with  me  because  while  celebrating  the  common  people  en 
masse,  I  do  not  allow  enough  heroism  and  moral  merit  and  good 
intentions  to  the  choicer  classes,  the  college-bred,  the  etat-major. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  S.  is  right  in  the  matter.  In  the  main 
I  myself  look,  and  have  from  the  first  look'd,  to  the  bulky  demo 
cratic  torso  of  the  United  States  even  for  esthetic  and  moral  at 
tributes  of  serious  account — and  refused  to  aim  at  or  accept  any 
thing  less.  If  America  is  only  for  the  rule  and  fashion  and  small 
typicality  of  other  lands  (the  rule  of  the  etat-major}  it  is  not  the 
land  I  take  it  for,  and  should  to-day  feel  that  my  literary  aim 
and  theory  had  been  blanks  and  misdirections.  Strictly  judged, 
most  modern  poems  are  but  larger  or  smaller  lumps  of  sugar,  or 
slices  of  toothsome  sweet  cake — even  the  banqueters  dwelling  on 
those  glucose  flavors  as  a  main  part  of  the  dish.  Which  perhaps 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  23 

leads  to  something  :  to  have  great  heroic  poetry  we  need  great 
readers — a  heroic  appetite  and  audience.  Have  we  at  present 
any  such  ? 

Then  the  thought  at  the  centre,  never  too  often  repeated. 
Boundless  material  wealth,  free  political  organization,  immense 
geographic  area,  and  unprecedented  'business'  and  products — even 
the  most  active  intellect  and  *  culture  ' — will  not  place  this  Com 
monwealth  of  ours  on  the  topmost  range  of  history  and  humanity 
— or  any  eminence  of  '  democratic  art ' — to  say  nothing  of  its 
pinnacle.  Only  the  production  (and  on  the  most  copious  scale) 
of  loftiest  moral,  spiritual  and  heroic  personal  illustrations — a 
great  native  Literature  headed  with  a  Poetry  stronger  and  sweeter 
than  any  yet.  If  there  can  be  any  such  thing  as  a  kosmic  mod 
ern  and  original  song,  America  needs  it,  and  is  worthy  of  it. 

In  my  opinion  to-day  (bitter  as  it  is  to  say  so)  the  outputs 
through  civilized  nations  everywhere  from  the  great  words  Litera 
ture,  Art,  Religion,  etc.,  with  their  conventional  administerers, 
stand  squarely  in  the  way  of  what  the  vitalities  of  those  great 
words  signify,  more  than  they  really  prepare  the  soil  for  them — 
or  plant  the  seeds,  or  cultivate  or  garner  the  crop.  My  own 
opinion  has  long  been,  that  for  New  World  service  our  ideas  of 
beauty  (inherited  from  the  Greeks,  and  so  on  to  Shakspere — 
query — perverted  from  them  ?)  need  to  be  radically  changed,  and 
made  anew  for  to-day's  purposes  and  finer  standards.  But  if  so,  it 
will  all  come  in  due  time — the  real  change  will  be  an  autochthonic, 
interior,  constitutional,  even  local  one,  from  which  our  notions 
of  beauty  (lines  and  colors  are  wondrous  lovely,  but  character  is 
lovelier)  will  branch  or  offshoot. 

So  much  have  I  now  rattled  off  (old  age's  garrulity,)  that 
there  is  not  space  for  explaining  the  most  important  and  pregnant 
principle  of  all,  viz.,  that  Art  is  one,  is  not  partial,  but  includes 
all  times  and  forms  and  sorts — is  not  exclusively  aristocratic  or 
democratic,  or  oriental  or  occidental.  My  favorite  symbol  would 
be  a  good  font  of  type,  where  the  impeccable  long-primer  rejects 
nothing.  Or  the  old  Dutch  flour-miller  who  said,  -'  I  never  bother 
myself  what  road  the  folks  come — I  only  want  good  wheat  and 
rye.' 

The  font  is  about  the  same  forever.  Democratic  art  results  of 
democratic  development,  from  tinge,  true  nationality,  belief,  in 
the  one  setting  up  from  it. 


OLD  POETS. 

POETRY  (I  am  clear)  is  eligible  of  something  far  more  ripen'd 
and  ample,  our  lands  and  pending  days,  than  it  has  yet  produced 
from  any  utterance  old  or  new.  Modern  or  new  poetry,  too, 
(viewing  or  challenging  it  with  severe  criticism,)  is  largely  a-void 
-—while  the  very  cognizance,  or  even  suspicion  of  that  void,  and 
the  need  of  rilling  it,  proves  a  certainty  of  the  hidden  and  wait 
ing  supply.  Leaving  other  lands  and  languages  to  speak  for 
themselves,  we  can  abruptly  but  deeply  suggest  it  best  from  our 
own — going  first  to  oversea  illustrations,  and  standing  on  them. 
Think  of  Byron,  Burns,  Shelley,  Keats,  (even  first-raters,  "  the 
brothers  of  the  radiant  summit,"  as  William  O'Connor  calls 
them,)  as  having  done  only  their  precursory  and  'prentice  work, 
and  all  their  best  and  real  poems  being  left  yet  unwrought,  un- 
touch'd.  Is  it  difficult  to  imagine  ahead  of  us  and  them,  evolv'd 
from  them,  poesy  completer  far  than  any  they  themselves  fulfill'd  ? 
One  has  in  his  eye  and  mind  some  very  large,  very  old,  entirely 
sound  and  vital  tree  or  vine,  like  certain  hardy,  ever-fruitful 
specimens  in  California  and  Canada,  or  down  in  Mexico,  (and 
indeed  in  all  lands)  beyond  the  chronological  records — illustra 
tions  of  growth,  continuity,  power,  amplitude  and  exploitation, 
almost  beyond  statement,  but  proving  fact  and  possibility,  out 
side  of  argument. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  the  rarest  and  most  blessed  quality  of  trans 
cendent  noble  poetry — as  of  law,  and  of  the  profoundest  wisdom 
and  aestheticism — is,  (I  would  suggest,)  from  sane,  completed, 
vital,  capable  old  age.  The  final  proof  of  song  or  personality  is  a 
sort  of  matured,  accreted,  superb,  evoluted,  almost  divine,  im 
palpable  diffuseness  and  atmosphere  or  invisible  magnetism,  dis 
solving  and  embracing  all — and  not  any  special  achievement  of 
passion,  pride,  metrical  form,  epigram,  plot,  thought,  or  what  is 
call'd  beauty.  The  bud  of  the  rose  or  the  half- blown  flower  is 
beautiful,  of  course,  but  only  the  perfected  bloom  or  apple  or 
finish' d  wheat-head  is  beyond  the  rest.  Completed  fruitage  like 
this  comes  (in  my  opinion)  to  a  grand  age,  in  man  or  woman, 
through  an  essentially  sound  continuated  physiology  and  psychol 
ogy  (both  important)  and  is  the  culminating  glorious  aureole  of 
all  and  several  preceding.  Like  the  tree  or  vine  just  mention'd, 
(24) 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  25 

it  stands  at  last  in  a  beauty,  power  and  productiveness  of  its  own, 
above  all  others,  and  of  a  sort  and  style  uniting  all  criticisms, 
proofs  and  adherences. 

Let  us  diversify  the  matter  a  little  by  portraying  some  of  the 
American  poets  from  our  own  point  of  view. 

Longfellow,  reminiscent,  polish' d,  elegant,  with  the  air  of 
finest  conventional  library,  picture-gallery  or  parlor,  with  ladies 
and  gentlemen  in  them,  and  plush  and  rosewood,  and  ground- 
glass  lamps,  and  mahogany  and  ebony  furniture,  and  a  silver 
inkstand  and  scented  satin  paper  to  write  on. 

Whittier  stands  for  morality  (not  in  any  all-accepting  philo 
sophic  or  Hegelian  sense,  but)  filter 'd  through  a  Puritanical  or 
Quaker  filter — is  incalculably  valuable  as  a  genuine  utterance, 
(and  the  finest,) — with  many  local  and  Yankee  and  genre  bits — 
all  hued  with  anti-slavery  coloring — (the  genre  and  anti-slavery 
contributions  all  precious — all  help.)  Whittier' s  is  rather  a  grand 
figure,  but  pretty  lean  and  ascetic — no  Greek — not  universal  and 
composite  enough  (don't  try — don't  wish  to  be)  for  ideal  Amer 
icanism.  Ideal  Americanism  would  take  the  Greek  spirit  and 
law,  and  democratize  and  scientize  and  (thence)  truly  Christian 
ize  them  for  the  whole,  the  globe,  all  history,  all  ranks  and  lands, 
all  facts,  all  good  and  bad.  (Ah  this  bad — this  nineteen-twen- 
tieths  of  us  all !  What  a  stumbling-block  it  remains  for  poets 
and  metaphysicians — what  a  chance  (the  strange,  clear-as-ever 
inscription  on  the  old  dug-up  tablet)  it  offers  yet  for  being  trans 
lated — what  can  be  its  purpose  in  the  God-scheme  of  this  universe, 
and  all?) 

Then  William  Cullen  Bryant — meditative,  serious,  from  first  to 
last  tending  to  threnodies — his  genius  mainly  lyrical — when  read 
ing  his  pieces  who  could  expect  or  ask  for  more  magnificent  ones 
than  such  as  "The  Battle-Field,"  and  "A  Forest  Hymn"? 
Bryant,  unrolling,  prairie-like,  notwithstanding  his  mountains 
and  lakes — moral  enough  (yet  worldly  and  conventional) — a 
naturalist,  pedestrian,  gardener  and  fruiter — well  aware  of  books, 
but  mixing  to  the  last  in  cities  and  society.  I  am  not  sure  but 
his  name  ought  to  lead  the  list  of  American  bards.  Years  ago  I 
thought  Emerson  pre-eminent  (and  as  to  the  last  polish  and  in 
tellectual  cuteness  may-be  I  think  so  still) — but,  for  reasons,  I 
have  been  gradually  tending  to  give  the  file-leading  place  for 
American  native  poesy  to  W.  C.  B. 

Of  Emerson  I  have  to  confirm  my  already  avow'd  opinion  re 
garding  his  highest  bardic  and  personal  attitude.  Of  the  galaxy 
of  the  past — of  Poe,  Halleck,  Mrs.  Sigourney,  Allston,  Willis, 
Dana,  John  Pierpont,  W.  G.  Simms,  Robert  Sands,  Drake,  Hill- 
house,  Theodore  Fay,  Margaret  Fuller,  Epes  Sargent,  Boker,  Paul 


26  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

Hayne,  Lanier,  and  others,  I  fitly  in  essaying  such  a  theme  as 
this,  and  reverence  for  their  memories,  may  at  least  give  a  heart- 
benison  on  the  list  of  their  names. 

Time  and  New  World  humanity  having  the  venerable  resem 
blances  more  than  anything  else,  and  being  "the  same  subject 
continued,"  just  here  in  1890,  one  gets  a  curious  nourishment 
and  lift  (I  do)  from  all  those  grand  old  veterans,  Bancroft,  Kos- 
suth,  von  Moltke — and  such  typical  specimen-reminiscences  as 
Sophocles  and  Goethe,  genius,  health,  beauty  of  person,  riches, 
rank,  renown  and  length  of  days,  all  combining  and  centering  in 
one  case. 

Above  everything,  what  could  humanity  and  literature  do 
without  the  mellow,  last-justifying,  averaging,  bringing-up  of 
many,  many  years — a  great  old  age  amplified?  Every  really 
first-class  production  has  likely  to  pass  through  the  crucial  tests 
of  a  generation,  perhaps  several  generations.  Lord  Bacon  says 
the  first  sight  of  any  work  really  new  and  first-rate  in  beauty  and 
originality  always  arouses  something  disagreeable  and  repulsive. 
Voltaire  term'd  the  Shaksperean  works  "a  huge  dunghill"; 
Hamlet  he  described  (to  the  Academy,  whose  members  listen'd 
with  approbation)  as  "the  dream  of  a  drunken  savage,  with  a 
few  flashes  of  beautiful  thoughts."  And  not  the  Ferney  sage 
alone ;  the  orthodox  judges  and  law-givers  of  France,  such  as 
La  Harpe,  J.  L.  Geoffrey,  and  Chateaubriand,  either  join'd  in 
Voltaire's  verdict,  or  went  further.  Indeed  the  classicists  and 
regulars  there  still  hold  to  it.  The  lesson  is  very  significant  in 
all  departments.  People  resent  anything  new  as  a  personal  in 
sult.  When  umbrellas  were  first  used  in  England,  those  who 
carried  them  were  hooted  and  pelted  so  furiously  that  their  lives 
were  endanger'd.  The  same  rage  encounter'd  the  attempt  in 
theatricals  to  perform  women's  parts  by  real  women,  which  was 
publicly  consider' d  disgusting  and  outrageous.  Byron  thought 
Pope's  verse  incomparably  ahead  of  Homer  and  Shakspere.  One 
of  the  prevalent  objections,  in  the  days  of  Columbus  was,  the 
learn' d  men  boldly  asserted  that  if  a  ship  should  reach  India  she 
would  never  get  back  again,  because  the  rotundity  of  the  globe 
would  present  a  kind  of  mountain,  up  which  it  would  be  impos 
sible  to  sail  even  with  the  most  favorable  wind. 

"Modern  poets,"  says  a  leading  Boston  journal,  "enjoy  lon 
gevity.  Browning  lived  to  be  seventy-seven.  Wordsworth,  Bryant, 
Emerson,  and  Longfellow  were  old  men.  Whittier,  Tennyson, 
and  Walt  Whitman  still  live."  Started  out  by  that  item  on  Old 
Poets  and  Poetry  for  chyle  to  inner  American  sustenance — I  have 
thus  gossipp'd  about  it  all,  and  treated  it  from  my  own  point  of 
view,  taking  the  privilege  of  rambling  wherever  the  talk  carried 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  27 

me.  Browning  is  lately  dead ;  Bryant,  Emerson  and  Longfellow 
have  not  long  pass'd  away;  and  yes,  Whittier  and  Tennyson  re 
main,  over  eighty  years  old — the  latter  having  sent  out  not  long 
since  a  fresh  volume,  which  the  English-speaking  Old  and  New 
Worlds  are  yet  reading.  I  have  already  put  on  record  my  no 
tions  of  T.  and  his  effusions :  they  are  very  attractive  and  flowery 
to  me — but  flowers,  too,  are  at  least  as  profound  as  anything; 
and  by  common  consent  T.  is  settled  as  the  poetic  cream-skimmer 
of  our  age's  melody,  iftftttf  and  polish — a  verdict  in  which  I  agree, 
and  should  say  that  nobody  (not  even  Shakspere)  goes  deeper 
in  those  exquisitely  touch' d  and  half-hidden  hints  and  indirec 
tions  left  like  faint  perfumes  in  the  crevices  of  his  lines.  Of 
Browning  I  don't  know  enough  to  say  much;  he  must  be  studied 
deeply  out,  too,  and  quite  certainly  repays  the  trouble — but  I  am 
old  and  indolent,  and  cannot  study  (and  never  did.) 

Grand  as  to-day's  accumulative  fund  of  poetry  is,  there  is  cer 
tainly  something  unborn,  not  yet  come  forth,  different  from  any 
thing  now  formulated  in  any  verse,  or  contributed  by  the  past  in 
any  land — something  waited  for,  craved,  hitherto  non-express'd. 
What  it  will  be,  and  how,  no  one  knows.  It  will  probably  have 
to  prove  itself  by  itself  and  its  readers.  One  thing",  it  must  run 
through  entire  humanity  (this  new  word  and  meaning  Solidarity 
has  arisen  to  us  moderns)  twining  all  lands  like  a  divine  thread, 
stringing  all  beads,  pebbles  or  gold,  from  God  and  the  soul,  and 
like  God's  dynamics  and  sunshine  illustrating  all  and  having 
reference  to  all.  From  anything  like  a  cosmical  point  of  view, 
the  entirety  of  imaginative  literature's  themes  and  results  as  we 
get  them  to-day  seems  painfully  narrow.  All  that  has  been  put 
in  statement,  tremendous  as  it  is,  what  is  it  compared  with  the 
vast  fields  and  values  and  varieties  left  unreap'd  ?  Of  our  own 
country,  the  splendid  races  North  or  South,  and  especially  of  the 
Western  and  Pacific  regions,  it  sometimes  seems  to  me  their 
myriad  noblest  Homeric  and  Biblic  elements  are  all  untouch'd, 
left  as  if  ashamed  of,  and  only  certain  very  minor  occasional 
delirium  tremens  glints  studiously  sought  and  put  in  print,  in 
short  tales,  "  poetry  "  or  books. 

I  give  these  speculations,  or  notions,  in  all  their  audacity,  for 
the  comfort  of  thousands — perhaps  a  majority  of  ardent  minds, 
women's  and  young  men's — who  stand  in  awe  and  despair  before 
the  immensity  of  suns  and  stars  already  in  the  firmament.  Even 
in  the  Iliad  and  Shakspere  there  is  (is  there  not?)  a  certain 
humiliation  produced  to  us  by  the  absorption  of  them,  unless  we 
sound  in  equality,  or  above  them,  the  songs  due  our  own  demo 
cratic  era  and  surroundings,  and  the  full  assertion  of  ourselves. 
And  in  vain  (such  is  my  opinion)  will  America  seek  successfully 


28  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

to  tune  any  superb  national  song  unless  the  heart-strings  of  the 
people  start  it  from  their  own  breasts — to  be  return'd  and  echoed 
there  again. 


SHIP  AHOY! 

IN  dreams  I  was  a  ship,  and  sail'd  the  boundless  seas, 

Sailing  and  ever  sailing — all  seas  and  into  every  port,  or  out 

upon  the  offing, 

Saluting,  cheerily  hailing  each  mate,  met  or  pass'd,  little  or  big, 
"  Ship  ahoy  !  "  thro'  trumpet  or  by  voice — if  nothing  more,  some 

friendly  merry  word  at  least, 
For  companionship  and  good  will  for  ever  to  all  and  each. 

FOR  QUEEN  VICTORIA'S  BIRTHDAY. 

An  American  arbutus  bunch  to  be  put  in  a  little  vase  on  the  royal  breakfast 
table,  May  2^th,  1890. 

LADY,  accept  a  birth-day  thought — haply  an  idle  gift  and  token, 

Right  from  the  scented  soil's  May-utterance  here, 

(Smelling  of  countless  blessings,  prayers,  and  old-time  thanks,)* 

A  bunch  of  white  and  pink  arbutus,  silent,  spicy,  shy, 

From  Hudson's,  Delaware's,  or  Potomac's  woody  banks. 

*  NOTE. — Very  little,  as  we  Americans  stand  this  day,  with  our  sixty-five  or 
seventy  millions  of  population,  an  immense  surplus  in  the  treasury,  and  all 
that  actual  power  or  reserve  power  (land  and  sea)  so  dear  to  nations— very 
little  I  say  do  we  realize  that  curious  crawling  national  shudder  when  the 
"  Trent  affair  "  promis'd  to  bring  upon  us  a  war  with  Great  Britain — follow' d 
unquestionably,  as  that  war  would  have,  by  recognition  of  the  Southern  Con 
federacy  from  all  the  leading  European  nations.  It  is  now  certain  that  all 
this  then  inevitable  train  of  calamity  hung  on  arrogant  and  peremptory  phrases 
in  the  prepared  and  written  missive  of  the  British  Minister,  to  America,  which 
the  Queen  (and  Prince  Albert  latent)  positively  and  promptly  cancell'd ;  and 
which  her  firm  attitude  did  alone  actually  erase  and  leave  out,  against  all  the 
other  official  prestige  and  Court  of  St.  James's.  On  such  minor  and  personal 
incidents  (so  to  call  them,)  often  depend  the  great  growths  and  turns  of  civil 
ization.  This  moment  of  a  woman  and  a  queen  surely  swung  the  grandest 
oscillation  of  modern  history's  pendulum.  Many  sayings  and  doings  of  that 
period,  from  foreign  potentates  and  powers,  might  well  be  dropt  in  oblivion 
by  America — but  never  this,  if  I  could  have  my  way.  W.  W. 


AMERICAN  NATIONAL 
LITERATURE. 

Is  there  any  such  thing — or  can  there  ever  be  ? 

So  you  want  an  essay  about  American  National  Literature, 
(tremendous  and  fearful  subject!)  do  you?*  Well,  if  you  will 
let  me  put  down  some  melanged  cogitations  regarding  the  matter, 
hap-hazard,  and  from  my  own  points  of  view,  I  will  try.  Horace 
Greeley  wrote  a  book  named  "  Hints  toward  Reforms,"  and  the 
title-line  was  consider'd  the  best  part  of  all.  In  the  present  case 
I  will  give  a  few  thoughts  and  suggestions,  of  good  and  ambitious 
intent  enough  anyhow — first  reiterating  the  question  right  out 
plainly :  American  National  Literature — is  there  distinctively  any 
such  thing,  or  can  there  ever  be  ?  First  to  me  comes  an  almost 
indescribably  august  form,  the  People,  with  varied  typical  shapes 
and  attitudes — then  the  divine  mirror,  Literature. 

As  things  are,  probably  no  more  puzzling  question  ever  offer' d 
itself  than  (going  back  to  old  Nile  for  a  trope,)  What  bread-seeds 
of  printed  mentality  shall  we  cast  upon  America's  waters,  to  grow 
and  return  after  many  days  ?  Is  there  for  the  future  authorship 
of  the  United  States  any  better  way  than  submission  to  the  teem 
ing  facts,  events,  activities,  and  importations  already  vital  through 
and  beneath  them  all?  I  have  often  ponder'd  it,  and  felt  myself 
disposed  to  let  it  go  at  that.  Indeed,  are  not  those  facts  and 
activities  and  importations  potent  and  certain  to  fulfil  themselves 
all  through  our  Commonwealth,  irrespective  of  any  attempt  from 
individual  guidance  ?  But  allowing  all,  and  even  at  that,  a  good 
part  of  the  matter  being  honest  discussion,  examination,  and  ear 
nest  personal  presentation,  we  may  even  for  sanitary  exercise  and 
contact  plunge  boldly  into  the  spread  of  the  many  waves  and 
cross-tides,  as  follows.  Or,  to  change  the  figure,  I  will  present 
my  varied  little  collation  (what  is  our  Country  itself  but  an  in 
finitely  vast  and  varied  collation?)  in  the  hope  that  the  show 
itself  indicates  a  duty  getting  more  and  more  incumbent  every 
day. 

In  general,  civilization's  totality  or  real  representative  Na- 

*  The  essay  was  for  the  North  American  Review,  in  answer  to  the  formal 
request  of  the  editor.  It  appear' d  in  March,  1891. 

(29) 


30  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

tional  Literature  formates  itself  (like  language,  or  "  the  weather") 
not  from  two  or  three  influences,  however  important,  nor  from 
any  learned  syllabus,  or  criticism,  or  what  ought  to  be,  nor  from 
any  minds  or  advice  of  toploftical  quarters — and  indeed  not  at 
all  from  the  influences  and  ways  ostensibly  supposed  (though  they 
too  are  adopted,  after  a  sort) — but  slowly,  slowly,  curiously,  from 
many  more  and  more,  deeper  mixings  and  siftings  (especially  in 
America)  and  generations  and  years  and  races,  and  what  largely 
appears  to  be  chance — but  is  not  chance  at  all.  First  of  all, 
for  future  National  Literature  in  America,  New  England  (the 
technically  moral  and  schoolmaster  region,  as  a  cynical  fellow  I 
know  calls  it)  and  the  three  or  four  great  Atlantic-coast  cities, 
highly  as  they  to-day  suppose  they  dominate  the  whole,  will  have 
to  haul  in  their  horns.  Ensemble  is  the  tap-root  of  National 
Literature.  America  is  become  already  a  huge  world  of  peoples, 
rounded  and  orbic  climates,  idiocrasies,  and  geographies — forty- 
four  Nations  curiously  and  irresistibly  blent  and  aggregated  in 
ONE  NATION,  with  one  imperial  language,  and  one  unitary  set  of 
social  and  legal  standards  over  all — and  (I  predict)  a  yet  to  be 
National  Literature.  (In  my  mind  this  last,  if  it  ever  comes,  is 
to  prove  grander  and  more  important  for  the  Commonwealth  than 
its  politics  and  material  wealth  and  trade,  vast  and  indispensable 
as  those  are.) 

Think  a  moment  what  must,  beyond  peradventure,  be  the  real 
permanent  sub-bases,  or  lack  of  them.  Books  profoundly  con 
sider' d  show  a  great  nation  more  than  anything  else — more  than 
laws  or  manners.  (This  is,  of  course,  probably  the  deep-down 
meaning  of  that  well-buried  but  ever-vital  platitude,  Let  me  sing 
the  people's  songs,  and  I  don't  care  who  makes  their  laws.)  Books 
too  reflect  humanity  en  masse,  and  surely  show  them  splendidly, 
or  the  reverse,  and  prove  or  celebrate  their  prevalent  traits  (these 
last  the  main  things.)  Homer  grew  out  of  and  has  held  the  ages, 
and  holds  to-day,  by  the  universal  admiration  for  personal  prowess, 
courage,  rankness,  amour propre,  leadership,  inherent  in  the  whole 
human  race.  Shakspere  concentrates  the  brilliancy  of  the  centu 
ries  of  feudalism  on  the  proud  personalities  they  produced,  and 
paints  the  amorous  passion.  The  books  of  the  Bible  stand  for 
the  final  superiority  of  devout  emotions  over  the  rest,  and  of  re 
ligious  adoration,  and  ultimate  absolute  justice,  more  powerful 
than  haughtiest  kings  or  millionares  or  majorities. 

What  the  United  States  are  working  out  and  establishing  needs 
imperatively  the  connivance  of  something  subtler  than  ballots 
and  legislators.  The  Goethean  theory  and  lesson  (if  I  may  briefly 
state  it  so)  of  the  exclusive  sufficiency  of  artistic,  scientific,  liter 
ary  equipment  to  the  character,  irrespective  of  any  strong  claims 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  31 

of  the  political  ties  of  nation,  state,  or  city,  could  have  answer'd 
under  the  conventionality  and  pettiness  of  Weimar,  or  the  Ger 
many,  or  even  Europe,  of  those  times;  but  it  will  not  do  for 
America  to-day  at  all.  We  have  not  only  to  exploit  our  own 
theory  above  any  that  has  preceded  us,  but  we  have  entirely  dif 
ferent,  and  deeper-rooted,  and  infinitely  broader  themes. 

When  I  have  had  a  chance  to  see  and  observe  a  sufficient  crowd 
of  American  boys  or  maturer  youths  or  well-grown  men,  all  the 
States,  as  in  my  experiences  in  the  Secession  War  among  the  sol 
diers,  or  west,  east,  north,  or  south,  or  my  wanderings  and  loiter- 
ings  through  cities  (especially  New  York  and  in  Washington,)  I 
have  invariably  found  coming  to  the  front  three  prevailing  per 
sonal  traits,  to  be  named  here  for  brevity's  sake  under  the  heads 
Good-Nature,  Decorum,  and  Intelligence.  (I  make  Good-Nature 
first,  as  it  deserves  to  be — it  is  a  splendid  resultant  of  all  the  rest, 
like  health  or  fine  weather.)  Essentially  these  lead  the  inherent 
list  of  the  high  average  personal  born  and  bred  qualities  of  the 
young  fellows  everywhere  through  the  United  States,  as  any  sharp 
observer  can  find  out  for  himself.  Surely  these  make  the  vertebral 
stock  of  superbest  and  noblest  nations  !  May  the  destinies  show 
it  so  forthcoming.  I  mainly  confide  the  whole  future  of  our 
Commonwealth  to  the  fact  of  these  three  bases.  Need  I  say  I 
demand  the  same  in  the  elements  and  spirit  and  fruitage  of 
National  Literature? 

Another,  perhaps  a  born  root  or  branch,  comes  under  the 
words  Noblesse  Oblige,  even  for  a  national  rule  or  motto.  My 
opinion  is  that  this  foregoing  phrase,  and  its  spirit,  should  influ 
ence  and  permeate  official  America  and  its  representatives  in 
Congress,  the  Executive  Departments,  the  Presidency,  and  the 
individual  States — should  be  one  of  their  chiefest  mottoes,  and 
be  carried  out  practically.  (I  got  the  idea  from  my  dear  friend 
the  democratic  Englishwoman,  Mrs.  Anne  Gilchrist,  now  dead. 
"The  beautiful  words  Noblesse  Oblige,"  said  she  to  me  once, 
"  are  not  best  for  some  develop' d  gentleman  or  lord,  but  some 
rich  and  develop'd  nation — and  especially  for  your  America.") 

Then  another  and  very  grave  point  (for  this  discussion  is  deep, 
deep — not  for  trifles,  or  pretty  seemings.)  I  am  not  sure  but  the 
establish' d  and  old  (and  superb  and  profound,  and,  one  may  say, 
needed  as  old)  conception  of  Deity  as  mainly  of  moral  constitu 
ency  (goodness,  purity,  sinlessness,  &c.)  has  been  undermined  by 
nineteenth-century  ideas  and  science.  What  does  this  immense 
and  almost  abnormal  development  of  Philanthropy  mean  among 
the  moderns  ?  One  doubts  if  there  ever  will  come  a  day  when 
the  moral  laws  and  moral  standards  will  be  supplanted  as  over 
all :  while  time  proceeds  (I  find  it  so  myself)  they  will  probably 


32  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

be  intrench' d  deeper  and  expanded  wider.  Then  the  expanded 
scientific  and  democratic  and  truly  philosophic  and  poetic  quality 
of  modernism  demands  a  Deific  identity  and  scope  superior  to  all 
limitations,  and  essentially  including  just  as  well  the  so-call'd 
evil  and  crime  and  criminals — all  the  malformations,  the  defec 
tive  and  abortions  of  the  universe. 

Sometimes  the  bulk  of  the  common  people  (who  are  far  more 
'cute  than  the  critics  suppose)  relish  a  well-hidden  allusion  or  hint 
carelessly  dropt,  faintly  indicated,  and  left  to  be  disinterr'd  or 
not.  Some  of  the  very  old  ballads  have  delicious  morsels  of  this 
kind.  Greek  Aristophanes  and  Pindar  abounded  in  them.  (I 
sometimes  fancy  the  old  Hellenic  audiences  must  have  been  as 
generally  keen  and  knowing  as  any  of  their  poets.)  Shakspere 
is  full  of  them.  Tennyson  has  them.  It  is  always  a  capital 
compliment  from  author  to  reader,  and  worthy  the  peering 
brains  of  America.  The  mere  smartness  of  the  common  folks, 
however,  does  not  need  encouraging,  but  qualities  more  solid 
and  opportune. 

What  are  now  deepest  wanted  in  the  States  as  roots  for  their 
literature  are  Patriotism,  Nationality,  Ensemble,  or  the  ideas  of 
these,  and  the  uncompromising  genesis  and  saturation  of  these. 
Not  the  mere  bawling  and  braggadocio  of  them,  but  the  radical 
emotion-facts,  the  fervor  and  perennial  fructifying  spirit  at 
fountain-head.  And  at  the  risk  of  being  misunderstood  I  should 
dwell  on  and  repeat  that  a  great  imaginative  literatus  for  America 
can  never  be  merely  good  and  moral  in  the  conventional  method. 
Puritanism  and  what  radiates  from  it  must  always  be  mention' d 
by  me  with  respect ;  then  I  should  say,  for  this  vast  and  varied 
Commonwealth,  geographically  and  artistically,  the  puritanical 
standards  are  constipated,  narrow,  and  non-philosophic. 

In  the  main  I  adhere  to  my  positions  in  "  Democratic  Vistas," 
and  especially  to  my  summing-up  of  American  literature  as  far  as 
to-day  is  concern'd.  In  Scientism,  the  Medical  Profession, 
Practical  Inventions,  and  Journalism,  the  United  States  have 
press' d  forward  to  the  glorious  front  rank  of  advanced  civilized 
lands,  as  also  in  the  popular  dissemination  of  printed  matter  (of 
a  superficial  nature  perhaps,  but  that  is  an  indispensable  prepara 
tory  stage,)  and  have  gone  in  common  education,  so-call'd,  far 
beyond  any  other  land  or  age.  Yet  the  high-pitch'd  taunt  of 
Margaret  Fuller,  forty  years  ago,  still  sounds  in  the  air:  "It 
does  not  follow,  because  the  United  States  print  and  read  more 
books,  magazines,  and  newspapers  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
that  they  really  have  therefore  a  literature. ' '  For  perhaps  it  is 
not  alone  the  free  schools  and  newspapers,  nor  railroads  and  fac 
tories,  nor  all  the  iron,  cotton,  wheat,  pork,  and  petroleum,  nor 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  33 

the  gold  and  silver,  nor  the  surplus  of  a  hundred  or  several  hun 
dred  millions,  nor  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments, 
nor  the  last  national  census,  that  can  put  this  Commonweal  high 
or  highest  on  the  cosmical  scale  of  history.  Something  else  is 
indispensable.  All  that  record  is  lofty,  but  there  is  a  loftier. 

The  great  current  points  are  perhaps  simple,  after  all :  first, 
that  the  highest  developments  of  the  New  World  and  Democracy, 
and  probably  the  best  society  of  the  civilized  world  all  over,  are 
to  be  only  reach'd  and  spinally  nourish'd  (in  my  notion)  by  a 
new  evolutionary  sense  and  treatment ;  and,  secondly,  that  the 
evolution-principle,  which  is  the  greatest  law  through  nature, 
and  of  course  in  these  States,  has  now  reach'd  us  markedly  for 
and  in  our  literature. 

In  other  writings  I  have  tried  to  show  how  vital  to  any  aspir 
ing  Nationality  must  ever  be  its  autochthonic  song,  and  how  for 
a  really  great  people  there  can  be  no  complete  and  glorious 
Name,  short  of  emerging  out  of  and  even  rais'd  on  such  born 
poetic  expression,  coming  from  its  own  soil  and  soul,  its  area, 
spread,  idiosyncrasies,  and  (like  showers  of  rain,  originally  rising 
impalpably,  distilPd  from  land  and  sea,)  duly  returning  there 
again.  Nor  do  I  forget  what  we  all  owe  to  our  ancestry ;  though 
perhaps  we  are  apt  to  forgive  and  bear  too  much  for  that  alone. 

One  part  of  the  national  American  literatus's  task  is  (and  it  is 
not  an  easy  one)  to  treat  the  old  hereditaments,  legends,  poems, 
theologies,  and  even  customs,  with  fitting  respect  and  toleration, 
and  at  the  same  time  clearly  understand  and  justify,  and  be  de 
voted  to  and  exploit  our  own  day,  its  diffused  light,  freedom, 
responsibilities,  with  all  it  necessitates,  and  that  our  New- World 
circumstances  and  stages  of  development  demand  and  make 
proper.  For  American  literature  we  want  mighty  authors,  not 
even  Carlyle-  and  Heine-like,  born  and  brought  up  in  (and  more 
or  less  essentially  partaking  and  giving  out)  that  vast  abnormal 
ward  or  hysterical  sick-chamber  which  in  many  respects  Europe, 
with  all  its  glories,  would  seem  to  be.  The  greatest  feature  in 
current  poetry  (perhaps  in  literature  anyhow)  is  the  almost  total 
lack  of  first-class  power,  and  simple,  natural  health,  flourishing 
and  produced  at  first  hand,  typifying  our  own  era.  Modern 
verse  generally  lacks  quite  altogether  the  modern,  and  is  oftener 
possess'd  in  spirit  with  the  past  and  feudal,  dressed  may-be  in 
late  fashions.  For  novels  and  plays  often  the  plots  and  surfaces 
are  contemporary — but  the  spirit,  even  the  fun,  is  morbid  and 
effete. 

There  is  an  essential  difference  between  the  Old  and  New. 
The  poems  of  Asia  and  Europe  are  rooted  in  the  long  past.  They 
celebrate  man  and  his  intellections  and  relativenesses  as  they 


34 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


have  been.  But  America,  in  as  high  a  strain  as  ever,  is  to  sing 
them  all  as  they  are  and  are  to  be.  (I  know,  of  course,  that  the 
past  is  probably  a  main  factor  in  what  we  are  and  know  and 
must  be.)  At  present  the  States  are  absorb'd  in  business,  money- 
making,  politics,  agriculture,  the  development  of  mines,  inter 
communications,  and  other  material  attents — which  all  shove  for 
ward  and  appear  at  their  height — as,  consistently  with  modern 
civilization,  they  must  be  and  should  be.  Then  even  these  are 
but  the  inevitable  precedents  and  providers  for  home-born,  tran 
scendent,  democratic  literature — to  be  shown  in  superior,  more 
heroic,  more  spiritual,  more  emotional,  personalities  and  songs. 
A  national  literature  is,  of  course,  in  one  sense,  a  great  mirror  or 
reflector.  There  must  however  be  something  before — something 
to  reflect.  I  should  say  now,  since  the  Secession  War,  there  has 
been,  and  to-day  unquestionably  exists,  that  something. 

Certainly,  anyhow,  the  United  States  do  not  so  far  utter 
poetry,  first-rate  literature,  or  any  of  the  so-call'd  arts,  to  any 
lofty  admiration  or  advantage — are  not  dominated  or  penetrated 
from  actual  inherence  or  plain  bent  to  the  said  poetry  and  arts. 
Other  work,  other  needs,  current  inventions,  productions,  have 
occupied  and  to-day  mainly  occupy  them.  They  are  very  'cute 
and  imitative  and  proud — can't  bear  being  left  too  glaringly 
away  far  behind  the  other  high-class  nations — and  so  we  set  up 
some  home  "poets,"  "artists,"  painters,  musicians,  literati,*n&. 
so  forth,  all  our  own  (thus  claim' d.)  The  whole  matter  has  gone 
on,  and  exists  to-day,  probably  as  it  should  have  been,  and 
should  be ;  as,  for  the  present,  it  must  be.  To  all  which  we 
conclude,  and  repeat  the  terrible  query :  American  National  Lit 
erature — is  there  distinctively  any  such  thing,  or  can  there  ever 
be? 


GATHERING  THE   CORN 

Last  of  October. — Now  mellow,  crisp  Autumn  days,  bright 
moonlight  nights,  and  gathering  the  corn — "cutting  up,"  as 
the  farmers  call  it.  Now,  or  of  late,  all  over  the  country,  a 
certain  green  and  brown-drab  eloquence  seeming  to  call  out, 
"  You  that  pretend  to  give  the  news,  and  all  that's  going,  why 
not  give  us  a  notice  ?  "  Truly,  O  fields,  as  for  the  notice, 

"  Take,  we  give  it  willingly." 

Only  we  must  do  it  our  own  way.  Leaving  the  domestic, 
dietary,  and  commercial  parts  of  the  question  (which  are  enor 
mous,  in  fact,  hardly  second  to  those  of  any  other  of  our  great 
soil-products),  we  will  just  saunter  down  a  lane  we  know,  on  an 
average  West  Jersey  farm,  and  let  the  fancy  of  the  hour  itemize 
America's  most  typical  agricultural  show  and  specialty. 

Gathering  the  Corn — the  British  call  it  Maize,  the  old  Yankee 
farmer  Indian  Corn.  The  great  plumes,  the  ears  well-en velor/d 
in  their  husks,  the  long  and  pointed  leaves,  in  summer,  like 
green  or  purple  ribands,  with  a  yellow  stem-line  in  the  middle,  all 
now  turn'd  dingy;  the  sturdy  stalks,  and  the  rustling  in  the 
breeze — the  breeze  itself  well  tempering  the  sunny  noon — The 
varied  reminiscences  recall' d — the  ploughing  and  planting  in 
spring — (the  whole  family  in  the  field,  even  the  little  girls  and 
boys  dropping  seed  in  the  hill) — the  gorgeous  sight  through  July 
and  August — the  walk  and  observation  early  in  the  day — the 
cheery  call  of  the  robin,  and  the  low  whirr  of  insects  in  the 
grass — -the  Western  husking  party,  when  ripe — the  November 
moonlight  gathering,  and  the  calls,  songs,  laughter  of  the  young 
fellows. 

Not  to  forget,  hereabouts,  in  the  Middle  States,  the  old  worm 
fences,  with  the  gray  rails  and  their  scabs  of  moss  and  lichen — 
those  old  rails,  weather  beaten,  but  strong  yet.  Why  not  come 
down  from  literary  dignity,  and  confess  we  are  sitting  on  one 
now,  under  the  shade  of  a  great  walnut  tree  ?  Why  not  confide 
that  these  lines  are  pencill'd  on  the  edge  of  a  woody  bank,  with 
a  glistening  pond  and  creek  seen  through  the  trees  south,  and 
the  corn  we  are  writing  about  close  at  hand  on  the  north  ?  Why 

(35) 


36  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

not  put  in  the  delicious  scent  of  the  " life  everlasting"  that  yet 
lingers  so  profusely  in  every  direction — the  chromatic  song  of 
the  one  persevering  locust  (the  insect  is  scarcer  this  fall  and  the 
past  summer  than  for  many  years)  beginning  slowly,  rising  and 
swelling  to  much  emphasis,  and  then  abruptly  falling— so  appro 
priate  to  the  scene,  so  quaint,  so  racy  and  suggestive  in  the  warm 
sunbeams,  we  could  sit  here  and  look  and  listen  for  an  hour  ? 
Why  not  even  the  tiny,  turtle-shaped,  yellow-back'd,  black- 
spotted  lady-bug  that  has  lit  on  the  shirt-sleeve  of  the  arm  indit 
ing  this  ?  Ending  our  list  with  the  fall-drying  grass,  the  Autumn 
days  themselves, 

"  Sweet  days  ;  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright," 

(yet  not  so  cool  either,  about  noon) — the  horse-mint,  the  wild 
carrot,  the  mullein,  and  the  bumble-bee. 

How  the  half-mad  vision  of  William  Blake — how  the  far  freer, 
far  firmer  fantasy  that  wrote  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream" — 
would  have  revell'd  night  or  day,  and  beyond  stint,  in  one  of 
our  American  corn  fields  !  Truly,  in  color,  outline,  material  and 
spiritual  suggestiveness,  where  any  more  inclosing  theme  for 
idealist,  poet,  literary  artist  ? 

What  we  have  written  has  been  at  noon  day — but  perhaps 
better  still  (for  this  collation,)  to  steal  off  by  yourself  these  fine 
nights,  and  go  slowly,  musingly  down  the  lane,  when  the  dry  and 
green-gray  frost-touch' d  leaves  seem  whisper-gossipping  all  over 
the  field  in  low  tones,  as  if  every  hill  had  something  to  say — 
and  you  sit  or  lean  recluse  near  by,  and  inhale  that  rare,  rich, 
ripe  and  peculiar  odor  of  the  gather' d  plant  which  comes  out  best 
only  to  the  night  air.  The  complex  impressions  of  the  far- 
spread  fields  and  woods  in  the  night,  are  blended  mystically, 
soothingly,  indefinitely,  and  yet  palpably  to  you  (appealing 
curiously,  perhaps  mostly,  to  the  sense  of  smell.)  All  is  com 
parative  silence  and  clear-shadow  below,  and  the  stars  are  up 
there  with  Jupiter  lording  it  over  westward  ;  sulky  Saturn  in  the 
east,  and  over  head  the  moon.  A  rare  well-shadow'd  hour ! 
By  no  means  the  least  of  the  eligibilities  of  the  gather'd  corn  ! 


A  DEATH-BOUQUET. 

Pic  ltd  Noontime,  Early  January,  1890. 

DEATH — too  great  a  subject  to  be  treated  so — indeed  the 
greatest  subject — and  yet  I  am  giving  you  but  a  few  random 
lines  about  it — as  one  writes  hurriedly  the  last  part  of  a  letter 
to  catch  the  closing  mail.  Only  I  trust  the  lines,  especially  the 
poetic  bits  quoted,  may  leave  a  lingering  odor  of  spiritual  hero 
ism  afterward.  For  I  am  probably  fond  of  viewing  all  really 
great  themes  indirectly,  and  by  side-ways  and  suggestions.  Cer 
tain  music  from  wondrous  voices  or  skilful  players — then  poetic 
glints  still  more — put  the  soul  in  rapport  with  death,  or  toward 
it.  Hear  a  strain  from  Tennyson's  late  "  Crossing  the  Bar  "  : 

"  Twilight  and  evening  bell, 
And  after  that  the  dark  ! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell, 
When  I  embark; 

"  For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place 

The  floods  may  bear  me  far, 

I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

When  I  have  crost  the  bar." 

Am  I  starting  the  sail-craft  of  poets  in  line?  Here  then  a 
quatrain  of  Phrynichus  long  ago  to  one  of  old  Athens'  favor 
ites: 

"  Thrice-happy  Sophocles !  in  good  old  age, 
Bless'd  as  a  man,  and  as  a  craftsman  bless'd, 
He  died ;  his  many  tragedies  were  fair, 
And  fair  his  end,  nor  knew  he  any  sorrow." 

Certain  music,  indeed,  especially  voluntaries  by  a  good  player, 
at  twilight — or  idle  rambles  alone  by  the  shore,  or  over  prairie 
or  on  mountain  road,  for  that  matter — favor  the  right  mood. 
Words  are  difficult — even  impossible.  No  doubt  any  one  will 
recall  ballads  or  songs  or  hymns  (may-be  instrumental  perform 
ances)  that  have  arous'd  so  curiously,  yet  definitely,  the  thought 
of  death,  the  mystic,  the  after-realm,  as  no  statement  or  sermon 
could — and  brought  it  hovering  near. 

(37) 


3g  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

A  happy  (to  call  it  so)  and  easy  death  is  at  least  as  much  a 
physiological  result  as  a  psychological  one.  The  foundation  of 
it  really  begins  before  birth,  and  is  thence  directly  or  indirectly 
shaped  and  affected,  even  constituted,  (the  base  stomachic)  by 
every  thing  from  that  minute  till  the  time  of  its  occurrence. 
And  yet  here  is  something  (Whittier's  "  Burning  Driftwood") 
of  an  opposite  coloring : 

"  I  know  the  solemn  monotone 

Of  waters  calling  unto  me ; 
I  know  from  whence  the  airs  have  blown, 

That  whisper  of  the  Eternal  Sea ; 
As  low  my  fires  of  driftwood  burn, 

I  hear  that  sea's  deep  sounds  increase, 
And,  fair  in  sunset  light,  discern 

Its  mirage-lifted  Isles  of  Peace." 

Like  an  invisible  breeze  after  a  long  and  sultry  day,  death 
sometimes  sets  in  at  last,  soothingly  and  refreshingly,  almost 
vitally.  In  not  a  few  cases  the  termination  even  appears  to  be  a 
sort  of  ecstasy.  Of  course  there  are  painful  deaths,  but  I  do  not 
believe  such  is  at  all  the  general  rule.  Of  the  many  hundreds  I 
myself  saw  die  in  the  fields  and  hospitals  during  the  Secession 
War  the  cases  of  mark'd  suffering  or  agony  in  extremis  were  very 
rare.  (It  is  a  curious  suggestion  of  immortality  that  the  mental 
and  emotional  powers  remain  to  their  clearest  through  all,  while 
the  senses  of  pain  and  flesh-volition  are  blunted  or  even  gone.) 

Then  to  give  the  following,  and  cease  before  the  thought  gets 
threadbare : 

"  Now,  land  and  life,  finale,  and  farewell ! 
Now  Voyager  depart !  (much,  much  for  thee  is  yet  in  store ;) 
Often  enough  hast  thou  adventur'd  o'er  the  seas, 
Cautiously  cruising,  studying  the  charts, 
Duly  again  to  port  and  hawser's  tie  returning. 
— But  now  obey  thy  cherish' d,  secret  wish, 
Embrace  thy  friends — leave  all  in  order ; 
To  port  and  hawser's  tie  no  more  returning, 
Depart  upon  thy  endless  cruise,  old  Sailor!  " 


SOME  LAGGARDS  YET. 

THE  PERFECT  HUMAN  VOICE. 

STATING  it  briefly  and  pointedly  I  should  suggest  that  the 
human  voice  is  a  cultivation  or  form'd  growth  on  a  fair  native 
foundation.  This  foundation  probably  exists  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten.  Sometimes  nature  affords  the  vocal  organ  in  perfection, 
or  rather  I  would  say  near  enough  to  whet  one's  appreciation 
and  appetite  for  a  voice  that  might  be  truly  call'd  perfection. 
To  me  the  grand  voice  is  mainly  physiological — (by  which  I  by 
no  means  ignore  the  mental  help,  but  wish  to  keep  the  emphasis 
where  it  belongs.)  Emerson  says  manners  form  the  representa 
tive  apex  and  final  charm  and  captivation  of  humanity :  but  he 
might  as  well  have  changed  the  typicality  to  voice. 

Of  course  there  is  much  taught  and  written  about  elocution, 
the  best  reading,  speaking,  etc.,  but  it  finally  settles  down  to 
best  human  vocalization.  Beyond  all  other  power  and  beauty, 
there  is  something  in  the  quality  and  power  of  the  right  voice 
(timbre  the  schools  call  it)  that  touches  the  soul,  the  abysms. 
It  was  not  for  nothing  that  the  Greeks  depended,  at  their  highest, 
on  poetry's  and  wisdom's  vocal  utterance  by  tete-a-tete  lectures 
— (indeed  all  the  ancients  did.) 

Of  celebrated  people  possessing  this  wonderful  vocal  power, 
patent  to  me,  in  former  days,  I  should  specify  the  contralto 
Alboni,  Elias  Hicks,  Father  Taylor,  the  tenor  Bettini,  Fanny 
Kemble,  and  the  old  actor  Booth,  and  in  private  life  many 
cases,  often  women.  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  the  best 
philosophy  and  poetry,  or  something  like  the  best,  after  all  these 
centuries,  perhaps  waits  to  be  rous'd  out  yet,  or  suggested,  by  the 
perfect  physiological  human  voice. 

SHAKSPERE  FOR   AMERICA. 

LET  me  send  you  a  supplementary  word  to  that  "view"  of 
Shakspere  attributed  to  me,  publish' d  in  your  July  number,  *  and 

*  This  bit  was  in  "  Poet-lore  "  monthly  for  September,  1890. 

(39) 


40  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

so  courteously  worded  by  the  reviewer  (thanks !  dear  friend.) 
But  you  have  left  out  what,  perhaps,  is  the  main  point,  as  follows  : 

"  Even  the  one  who  at  present  reigns  unquestion'd — of  Shak- 
spere — for  all  he  stands  for  so  much  in  modern  literature,  he 
stands  entirely  for  the  mighty  aesthetic  sceptres  of  the  past,  not 
for  the  spiritual  and  democratic,  the  sceptres  of  the  future." 
(See  pp.  55-58  in  "November  Boughs,"  and  also  some  of  my 
further  notions  on  Shakspere.) 

The  Old  World  (Europe  and  Asia)  is  the  region  of  the  poetry 
of  concrete  and  real  things, — the  past,  the  aesthetic,  palaces, 
etiquette,  the  literature  of  war  and  love,  the  mythological  gods, 
and  the  myths  anyhow.  But  the  New  World  (America)  is  the 
region  of  the  future,  and  its  poetry  must  be  spiritual  and  demo 
cratic.  Evolution  is  not  the  rule  in  Nature,  in  Politics,  and 
Inventions  only,  but  in  Verse.  I  know  our  age  is  greatly  mate 
rialistic,  but  it  is  greatly  spiritual,  too,  and  the  future  will  be,  too. 
Even  what  we  moderns  have  come  to  mean  by  spirituality  (while 
including  what  the  Hebraic  utterers,  and  mainly  perhaps  all  the 
Greek  and  other  old  typical  poets,  and  also  the  later  ones, 
meant)  has  so  expanded  and  color'd  and  vivified  the  compre 
hension  of  the  term,  that  it  is  quite  a  different  one  from  the 
past.  Then  science,  the  final  critic  of  all,  has  the  casting  vote 
for  future  poetry. 

"UNASSAIL'D  RENOWN." 

THE  N.  Y.  Critic,  Nov:  24,  1889,  propounded  a  circular  to 
several  persons,  and  giving  the  responses,  says,  "  Walt  Whitman's 
views  [as  follow]  are,  naturally,  more  radical  than  those  of  any 
other  contributor  to  the  discussion  ' ' : 

Briefly  to  answer  impromptu  your  request  of  Oct :  19 — the  ques 
tion  whether  I  think  any  American  poet  not  now  living  deserves 
a  place  among  the  thirteen  "English  inheritors  of  unassail'd 
renown"  (Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakspere,  Milton,  Dryden,  Pope, 
Gray,  Burns,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Byron,  Shelley  and  Keats,) 
— and  which  American  poets  would  be  truly  worthy,  &c.  Though 
to  me  the  deep  of  the  matter  goes  down,  down  beneath.  I  remem 
ber  the  London  Times  at  the  time,  in  opportune,  profound  and 
friendly  articles  on  Bryant's  and  Longfellow's  deaths,  spoke  of 
the  embarrassment,  warping  effect,  and  confusion  on  America 
(her  poets  and  poetic  students)  "coming  in  possession  of  a  great 
estate  they  had  never  lifted  a  hand  to  form  or  earn  " ;  and  the 
further  contingency  of  "the  English  language  ever  having  an- 
nex'd  to  it  a  lot  of  first-class  Poetry  that  would  be  American,  not 
European" — proving  then  something  precious  over  all,  and  be- 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  4! 

yond  valuation.  But  perhaps  that  is  venturing  outside  the  ques 
tion.  Of  the  thirteen  British  immortals  mention'd — after  placing 
Shakspere  on  a  sort  of  pre-eminence  of  fame  not  to  be  invaded 
yet — the  names  of  Bryant,  Emerson,  Whittier  and  Longfellow 
(with  even  added  names,  sometimes  Southerners,  sometimes  West 
ern  or  other  writers  of  only  one  or  two  pieces,)  deserve  in  my 
opinion  an  equally  high  niche  of  renown  as  belongs  to  any  on 
the  dozen  of  that  glorious  list. 

INSCRIPTION  FOR  A  LITTLE  BOOK  ON  GIORDANO  BRUNO. 

As  America's  mental  courage  (the  thought  comes  to  me  to-day) 
is  so  indebted,  above  all  current  lands  and  peoples,  to  the  noble 
army  of  Old-World  martyrs  past,  how  incumbent  on  us  that  we 
clear  those  martyrs'  lives  and  names,  and  hold  them  up  for  rev 
erent  admiration,  as  well  as  beacons.  And  typical  of  this,  and 
standing  for  it  and  all  perhaps,  Giordano  Bruno  may  well  be  put, 
to-day  and  to  come,  in  our  New  World's  thankfulest  heart  and 
memory.  W.  W. 

February  24th,  1890. 

Camden,  N.  J. 

SPLINTERS. 

WHILE  I  stand  in  reverence  before  the  fact  of  Humanity,  the 
People,  I  will  confess,  in  writing  my  L  of  G,  the  least  consider 
ation  out  of  all  that  has  had  to  do  with  it  has  been  the  consider 
ation  of  "  the  public  " — at  any  rate  as  it  now  exists.  Strange  as 
it  may  sound  for  a  democrat  to  say  so,  I  am  clear  that  no  free 
and  original  and  lofty-soaring  poem,  or  one  ambitious  of  those 
achievements,  can  possibly  be  fulfill'd  by  any  writer  who  has 
largely  in  his  thought  the  public — or  the  question,  What  will 
establish' d  literature — What  will  the  current  authorities  say  about 
it? 

As  far  as  I  have  sought  any,  not  the  best  laid  out  garden  or 
parterre  has  been  my  model — but  Nature  has  been.  I  know  that 
in  a  sense  the  garden  is  nature  too,  but  I  had  to  choose — I  could 
not  give  both.  Besides  the  gardens  are  well  represented  in 
poetry;  while  Nature  (in  letter  and  in  spirit,  in  the  divine 
essence,)  little  if  at  all. 

Certainly,  (while  I  have  not  hit  it  by  a  long  shot,)  I  have 
aim'd  at  the  most  ambitious,  the  best — and  sometimes  feel  to 
advance  that  aim  (even  with  all  its  arrogance)  as  the  most  re 
deeming  part  of  my  books.  I  have  never  so  much  cared  to  feed 


42  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

the  esthetic  or  intellectual  palates — but  if  I  could  arouse  from  its 
slumbers  that  eligibility  in  every  soul  for  its  own  true  exercise ! 
if  I  could  only  wield  that  lever  ! 

Out  from  the  well-tended  concrete  and  the  physical — and  in 
them  and  from  them  only — radiate  the  spiritual  and  heroic. 

Undoubtedly  many  points  belonging  to  this  essay — perhaps  of 
the  greatest  necessity,  fitness  and  importance  to  it — have  been 
left  out  or  forgotten.  But  the  amount  of  the  whole  matter — 
poems,  preface  and  everything — is  merely  to  make  one  of  those 
little  punctures  or  eye-lets  the  actors  possess  in  the  theatre-cur 
tains  to  look  out  upon  "the  house" — one  brief,  honest,  living 
glance. 

HEALTH,  (OLD   STYLE.) 

IN  that  condition  the  whole  body  is  elevated  to  a  state  by 
others  unknown — inwardly  and  outwardly  illuminated,  purified, 
made  solid,  strong,  yet  buoyant.  A  singular  charm,  more  than 
beauty,  flickers  out  of,  and  over,  the  face — a  curious  transparency 
beams  in  the  eyes,  both  in  the  iris  and  the  white — the  temper 
partakes  also.  Nothing  that  happens — no  event,  rencontre, 
weather,  etc. — but  it  is  confronted — nothing  but  is  subdued  into 
sustenance — such  is  the  marvellous  transformation  from  the  old 
timorousness  and  the  old  process  of  causes  and  effects.  Sorrows 
and  disappointments  cease — there  is  no  more  borrowing  trouble 
in  advance.  A  man  realizes  the  venerable  myth — he  is  a  god 
walking  the  earth,  he  sees  new  eligibilities,  powers  and  beauties 
everywhere ;  he  himself  has  a  new  eyesight  and  hearing.  The 
play  of  the  body  in  motion  takes  a  previously  unknown  grace. 
Merely  to  move  is  then  a  happiness,  a  pleasure — to  breathe,  to 
see,  is  also.  All  the  beforehand  gratifications,  drink,  spirits, 
coffee,  grease,  stimulants,  mixtures,  late  hours,  luxuries,  deeds 
of  the  night,  seem  as  vexatious  dreams,  and  now  the  awakening ; 
— many  fall  into  their  natural  places,  wholesome,  conveying  di 
viner  joys. 

What  I  append — Health,  old  style — I  have  long  treasur'd — 
found  originally  in  some  scrap-book  fifty  years  ago — a  favorite 
of  mine  (but  quite  a  glaring  contrast  to  my  present  bodily  state  :) 

ON  a  high  rock  above  the  vast  abyss, 

Whose  solid  base  tumultuous  waters  lave ; 

Whose  airy  high-top  balmy  breezes  kiss, 

Fresh  from  the  white  foam  of  the  circling  wave — 

There  ruddy  HEALTH,  in  rude  majestic  state, 
His  clust'ring  forelock  combatting  the  winds — 

Bares  to  each  season's  change  his  breast  elate, 
And  still  fresh  vigor  from  th*  encounter  finds : 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  43 

With  mighty  mind  to  every  fortune  braced, 

To  every  climate  each  corporeal  power, 
And  high-proof  heart,  impenetrably  cased, 

He  mocks  the  quick  transitions  of  the  hour. 

Now  could  he  hug  bleak  Zembla's  bolted  snow, 

Now  to  Arabia's  heated  deserts  turn, 
Yet  bids  the  biting  blast  more  fiercely  blow, 

The  scorching  sun  without  abatement  burn. 

There  this  bold  Outlaw,  rising  with  the  morn, 

His  sinewy  functions  fitted  for  the  toil, 
Pursues,  with  tireless  steps,  the  rapturous  horn, 

And  bears  in  triumph  back  the  shaggy  spoil. 

Or,  on  his  rugged  range  of  towering  hills, 

Turns  the  stiff  glebe  behind  his  hardy  team ; 
His  wide-spread  heaths  to  blithest  measures  tills, 

And  boasts  the  joys  of  life  are  not  a  dream ! 

Then  to  his  airy  hut,  at  eve,  retires, 

Clasps  to  his  open  breast  his  buxom  spouse, 
Basks  in  his  faggot's  blaze,  his  passions  fires, 

And  strait  supine  to  rest  unbroken  bows. 

On  his  smooth  forehead,  Time's  old  annual  score, 

Tho'  left  to  furrow,  yet  disdains  to  lie ; 
He  bids  weak  sorrow  tantalize  no  more, 

And  puts  the  cup  of  care  contemptuous  by. 

If,  from  some  inland  height,  that,  skirting,  bears 

Its  rude  encroachments  far  into  the  vale, 
He  views  where  poor  dishonor'd  nature  wears 

On  her  soft  cheek  alone  the  lily  pale ; 

How  will  he  scorn  alliance  with  the  race, 

Those  aspin  shoots  that  shiver  at  a  breath ; 
Children  of  sloth,  that  danger  dare  not  face, 

And  find  in  life  but  an  extended  death : 

Then  from  the  silken  reptiles  will  he  fly, 

To  the  bold  cliff  in  bounding  transports  run, 
And  stretch' d  o'er  many  a  wave  his  ardent  eye, 

Embrace  the  enduring  Sea-Boy  as  his  son ! 

Yes  !  thine  alone — from  pain,  from  sorrow  free, 
The  lengthen'd  life  with  peerless  joys  replete; 

Then  let  me,  Lord  of  Mountains,  share  with  thee 
The  hard,  the  early  toil — the  relaxation  sweet. 


GAY-HEARTEDNES3. 

WALKING  on  the  old  Navy  Yard  bridge,  Washington,  D.  C., 
once  with  a  companion,  Mr.  Marshall,  from  England,  a  great 
traveler  and  observer,  as  a  squad  of  laughing  young  black  girls 


44 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


pass'd  us — then  two  copper-color 'd  boys,  one  good-looking  lad 
15  or  1 6,  barefoot,  running  after — "What  gay  creatures  they 
all  appear  to  be,"  said  Mr.  M.  Then  we  fell  to  talking  about 
the  general  lack  of  buoyant  animal  spirits.  "  I  think,"  said  Mr. 
M.,  "that  in  all  my  travels,  and  all  my  intercourse  with  people 
of  every  and  any  class,  especially  the  cultivated  ones,  (the  liter 
ary  and  fashionable  folks,)  I  have  never  yet  come  across  what  I 
should  call  a  really  GAY-HEARTED  MAN." 

It  was  a  terrible  criticism — cut  into  me  like  a  surgeon's  lance. 
Made  me  silent  the  whole  walk  home. 

AS  IN  A  SWOON. 

As  in  a  swoon,  one  instant, 

Another  sun,  ineffable,  full-dazzles  me, 

And  all  the  orbs  I  knew — and  brighter,  unknown  orbs ; 

One  instant  of  the  future  land,  Heaven's  land. 

L  OF  G. 

THOUGHTS,  suggestions,  aspirations,  pictures, 

Cities  and  farms — by  day  and  night — book  of  peace  and  war, 

Of  platitudes  and  of  the  commonplace. 

For  out-door  health,  the  land  and  sea — for  good  will, 

For  America — for  all  the  earth,  all  nations,  the  common  people, 

(Not  of  one  nation  only — not  America  only.) 

In  it  each  claim,  ideal,  line,  by  all  lines,  claims,  ideals,  temper'd ; 
Each  right  and  wish  by  other  wishes,  rights. 

AFTER  THE   ARGUMENT. 

A  GROUP  of  little  children  with  their  ways  and  chatter  flow  in, 
Like  welcome  rippling  water  o'er  my  heated  nerves  and  flesh. 

FOR  US  TWO,  READER  DEAR. 

SIMPLE,  spontaneous,  curious,  two  souls  interchanging, 
With  the  original  testimony  for  us  continued  to  the  last. 


MEMORANDA. 

[Let  me  indeed  turn  upon  myself  a  little  of  the  light  I  have  been  so  fond 
of  casting  on  others. 

Of  course  these  few  exceptional  later  mems  are  far  far  short  of  one's 
concluding  history  or  thoughts  or  life-giving  —  only  a  hap-hazard  pinch  of  all. 
But  the  old  Greek  proverb  put  it,  "Anybody  who  really  has  a  good  quality" 
(or  bad  one  either,  I  guess)  "has  all."  There's  something  in  the  proverb; 
but  you  mustn't  carry  it  too  far. 

I  will  not  reject  any  theme  or  subject  because  the  treatment  is  too  personal. 
As  my  stuff  settles  into  shape,  I  am  told  (and  sometimes  myself  discover,  un 
easily,  but  feel  all  right  about  it  in  calmer  moments)  it  is  mainly  autobiographic, 
and  even  egotistic  after  all  —  which  I  finally  accept,  and  am  contented  so. 

If  this  little  volume  betrays,  as  it  doubtless  does,  a  weakening  hand,  and 
decrepitude,  remember  it  is  knit  together  out  of  accumulated  sickness,  inertia, 
physical  disablement,  acute  pain,  and  listlessness.  My  fear  will  be  that  at 
last  my  pieces  show  indooredness,  and  being  chain'd  to  a  chair  —  as  never  be 
fore.  Only  the  resolve  to  keep  up,  and  on,  and  to  add  a  remnant,  and  even 
perhaps  obstinately  see  what  failing  powers  and  decay  may  contribute  too, 
have  produced  it. 

And  now  as  from  some  fisherman's  net  hauling  all  sorts,  and  disbursing  the 
same.] 

A  WORLD'S   SHOW. 


New  York,  Great  Exposition  opened  in  1853.  —  *  went  a 
time  (nearly  a  year)  —  days  and  nights  —  especially  the  latter  — 
as  it  was  finely  lighted,  and  had  a  very  large  and  copious  ex 
hibition  gallery  of  paintings  (shown  at  best  at  night,  I  tho't)  — 
hundreds  of  pictures  from  Europe,  many  masterpieces  —  all  an 
exhaustless  study  —  and,  scatter'd  thro'  the  building,  sculptures, 
single  figures  or  groups  —  among  the  rest,  Thorwaldsen's  "Apos 
tles,"  colossal  in  size  —  and  very  many  fine  bronzes,  pieces  of 
plate  from  English  silversmiths,  and  curios  from  everywhere 
abroad  —  with  woods  from  all  lands  of  the  earth  —  all  sorts  of 
fabrics  and  products  and  handiwork  from  the  workers  of  all 
nations. 

NEW  YORK—  THE  BAY—  THE  OLD  NAME. 

Commencement  of  a  gossipy  travelling  letter  in  a  New  York  city 
paper,  May  10,  1879-  —  My  month's  visit  is  about  up;  but  before 
I  get  back  to  Camden  let  me  print  some  jottings  of  the  last  four 
weeks.  Have  you  not,  reader  dear,  among  your  intimate  friends, 
some  one,  temporarily  absent,  whose  letters  to  you,  avoiding  all 
the  big  topics  and  disquisitions,  give  only  minor,  gossipy  sights 
and  scenes  —  just  as  they  come  —  subjects  disdain'd  by  solid 

(45) 


46  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

writers,  but  interesting  to  you  because  they  were  such  as  happen 
to  everybody,  and  were  the  moving  entourage  to  your  friend — to 
his  or  her  steps,  eyes,  mentality  ?  Well,  with  an  idea  something 
of  that  kind,  I  suppose,  I  set  out  on  the  following  hurrygraphs 
of  a  breezy  early-summer  visit  to  New-York  City  and  up  the 
North  River — especially  at  present  of  some  hours  along  Broad 
way. 

What  I  came  to  New  York  for. — To  try  the  experiment  of  a 
lecture — to  see  whether  I  could  stand  it,  and  whether  an  audience 
could — was  my  specific  object.  Some  friends  had  invited  me — 
it  was  by  no  means  clear  how  it  would  end — I  stipulated  that 
they  should  get  only  a  third-rate  hall,  and  not  sound  the  adver 
tising  trumpets  a  bit — and  so  I  started.  I  much  wanted  some 
thing  to  do  for  occupation,  consistent  with  my  limping  and  par 
alyzed  state.  And  now,  since  it  came  off,  and  since  neither  my 
hearers  nor  I  myself  really  collaps'd  at  the  aforesaid  lecture,  I 
intend  to  go  up  and  down  the  land  (in  moderation,)  seeking 
whom  I  may  devour,  with  lectures,  and  reading  of  my  own 
poems — short  pulls,  however — never  exceeding  an  hour. 

Crossing  from  Jersey  City,  5  to  6  p.  m. — The  city  part  of  the 
North  River  with  its  life,  breadth,  peculiarities — the  amplitude 
of  sea  and  wharf,  cargo  and  commerce — one  don't  realize  them 
till  one  has  been  away  a  long  time  and,  as  now  returning,  (cross 
ing  from  Jersey  City  to  Desbrosses-st.,)  gazes  on  the  unrivall'd 
panorama,  and  far  down  the  thin-vapor' d  vistas  of  the  bay,  to 
ward  the  Narrows — or  northward  up  the  Hudson — or  on  the 
ample  spread  and  infinite  variety,  free  and  floating,  of  the  more 
immediate  views — a  countless  river  series — everything  moving, 
yet  so  easy,  and  such  plenty  of  room  !  Little,  I  say,  do  folks 
here  appreciate  the  most  ample,  eligible,  picturesque  bay  and 
estuary  surroundings  in  the  world  !  This  is  the  third  time  such 
a  conviction  has  come  to  me  after  absence,  returning  to  New- 
York,  dwelling  on  its  magnificent  entrances — approaching  the 
city  by  them  from  any  point. 

More  and  more,  too,  the  old  name  absorbs  into  me — MANNA- 
HATTA,  "  the  place  encircled  by  many  swift  tides  and  sparkling 
waters."  How  fit  a  name  for  America's  great  democratic  island 
city  !  The  word  itself,  how  beautiful !  how  aboriginal !  how  it 
seems  to  rise  with  tall  spires,  glistening  in  sunshine,  with  such 
New  World  atmosphere,  vista  and  action  ! 

A  SICK   SPELL. 

Christmas  Day,  25 th  Dec.,  1888. — Am  somewhat  easier  and 
freer  to-day  and  the  last  three  days — sit  up  most  of  the  time — 
read  and  write,  and  receive  my  visitors.  Have  now  been  in-doors 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


47 


sick  for  seven  months — half  of  the  time  bad,  bad,  vertigo,  indi 
gestion,  bladder,  gastric,  head  trouble,  inertia — Dr.  Bucke,  Dr. 
Osier,  Drs.  Wharton  and  Walsh — now  Edward  Wilkins  my  help 
and  nurse.  A  fine,  splendid,  sunny  day.  My  "  November 
Boughs  "  is  printed  and  out;  and  my  "  Complete  Works,  Poems 
and  Prose,"  a  big  volume,  900  pages,  also.  It  is  ab't  noon,  and 
I  sit  here  pretty  comfortable. 

TO   BE   PRESENT  ONLY. 

At  the  Complimentary  Dinner,  Camden,  New  Jersey,  May  31, 
1889. — Walt  Whitman  said  : 

My  friends,  though  announced  to  give  an  address,  there  is  no 
such  intention.  Following  the  impulse  of  the  spirit,  (for  I  am  at 
least  half  of  Quaker  stock)  I  have  obey'd  the  command  to  come 
and  look  at  you,  for  a  minute,  and  show  myself,  face  to  face ; 
which  is  probably  the  best  I  can  do.  But  I  have  felt  no  com 
mand  to  make  a  speech ;  and  shall  not  therefore  attempt  any. 
All  I  have  felt  the  imperative  conviction  to  say  I  have  already 
printed  in  my  books  of  poems  or  prose ;  to  which  I  refer  any  who 
may  be  curious.  And  so,  hail  and  farewell.  Deeply  acknowl 
edging  this  deep  compliment,  with  my  best  respects  and  love  to 
you  personally — 'to  Camden — to  New- Jersey,  and  to  all  repre 
sented  here — you  must  excuse  me  from  any  word  further. 

Fm  Pall-Mall  Gazette,  London,  England,  Feb.  8,  1890. 
"INTESTINAL  AGITATION." 

Mr.  Ernest  Rhys  has  just  receiv'd  an  interesting  letter  from 
Walt  Whitman,  dated  "Camden,  January  22,  1890."  The  fol 
lowing  is  an  extract  from  it : 

I  am  still  here — no  very  mark'd  or  significant  change  or  hap 
pening — fairly  buoyant  spirits,  &c. — but  surely,  slowly  ebbing. 
At  this  moment  sitting  here,  in  my  den,  Mickle  Street,  by  the 
oakwood  fire,  in  the  same  big  strong  old  chair  with  wolf-skin 
spread  over  back — bright  sun,  cold,  dry  winter  day.  America 
continues — is  generally  busy  enough  all  over  her  vast  demesnes 
(intestinal  agitation  I  call  it,)  talking,  plodding,  making  money, 
every  one  trying  to  get  on — perhaps  to  get  towards  the  top — 
but  no  special  individual  signalism — (just  as  well,  I  guess.) 

"WALT  WHITMAN'S   LAST  'PUBLIC.'" 

The  gay  and  crowded  audience  at  the  Art  Rooms,  Philadel 
phia,  Tuesday  night,  April  15,  1890,  says  a  correspondent  of  the 
Boston  Transcript,  April  19,  might  not  have  thought  that  W.  W. 
crawl' d  out  of  a  sick  bed  a  few  hours  before,  crying, 


48  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

Dangers  retreat  when  boldly  they're  confronted, 

and  went  over,  hoarse  and  half  blind,  to  deliver  his  memoranda 
and  essay  on  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  on  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  that  tragedy.  He  led  off  with  the  following  new 
paragraph  : 

"  Of  Abraham  Lincoln,  bearing  testimony  twenty-five  years 
after  his  death — and  of  that  death — I  am  now  my  friends  before 
you.  Few  realize  the  days,  the  great  historic  and  esthetic  per 
sonalities,  with  him  in  the  centre,  we  pass'd  through.  Abraham 
Lincoln,  familiar,  our  own,  an  Illinoisian,  modern,  yet  tallying 
ancient  Moses,  Joshua,  Ulysses,  or  later  Cromwell,  and  grander 
in  some  respects  than  any  of  them  ;  Abraham  Lincoln,  that  makes 
the  like  of  Homer,  Plutarch,  Shakspere,  eligible  our  day  or  any 
day.  My  subject  this  evening  for  forty  or  fifty  minutes'  talk  is 
the  death  of  this  man,  and  how  that  death  will  really  filter  into 
America.  I  am  not  going  to  tell  you  anything  new ;  and  it  is 
doubtless  nearly  altogether  because  I  ardently  wish  to  commem 
orate  the  hour  and  martyrdom  and  name  I  am  here.  Oft  as  the 
rolling  years  bring  back  this  hour,  let  it  again,  however  briefly, 
be  dwelt  upon.  For  my  own  part  I  hope  and  intend  till  my  own 
dying  day,  whenever  the  i4th  or  i5th  of  April  comes,  to  annu 
ally  gather  a  few  friends  and  hold  its  tragic  reminiscence.  No 
narrow  or  sectional  reminiscence.  It  belongs  to  these  States  in 
their  entirety — not  the  North  only,  but  the  South — perhaps  be 
longs  most  tenderly  and  devoutly  to  the  South,  of  all ;  for  there 
really  this  man's  birthstock;  there  and  then  his  antecedent 
stamp.  Why  should  I  not  say  that  thence  his  manliest  traits, 
his  universality,  his  canny,  easy  ways  and  words  upon  the  sur 
face — his  inflexible  determination  at  heart  ?  Have  you  ever  real 
ized  it,  my  friends,  that  Lincoln,  though  grafted  on  the  West,  is 
essentially  in  personnel  and  character  a  Southern  contribution  ? ' ' 

The  most  of  the  poet's  address  was  devoted  to  the  actual  oc 
currences  and  details  of  the  murder.  We  believe  the  delivery  on 
Tuesday  was  Whitman's  thirteenth  of  it.  The  old  poet  is  now 
physically  wreck'd.  But  his  voice  and  magnetism  are  the  same. 
For  the  last  month  he  has  been  under  a  severe  attack  of  the  lately 
prevailing  influenza,  the  grip,  in  accumulation  upon  his  previous 
ailments,  and,  above  all,  that  terrible  paralysis,  the  bequest  of 
Secession  War  times.  He  was  dress'd  last  Tuesday  night  in  an 
entire  suit  of  French  Canadian  grey  wool  cloth,  with  broad  shirt 
collar,  with  no  necktie  ;  long  white  hair,  red  face,  full  beard  and 
moustache,  and  look'd  as  though  he  might  weigh  two  hundred 
pounds.  He  had  to  be  help'd  and  led  every  step.  In  five  weeks 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


49 


more  he  will  begin  his  seventy-second  year.     He  is  still  writing 
a  little. 

From  the  Camden  Post,  N.  ?.,  June  2,  1890. 

INGERSOLL'S   SPEECH. 

He  attends  and  makes  a  speech  at  the  celebration  of  Walt 
Wliitmarf  s  birthday. — Walt  Whitman  is  now  in  his  seventy-sec 
ond  year.  His  younger  friends,  literary  and  personal,  men  and 
women,  gave  him  a  complimentary  supper  last  Saturday  night, 
to  note  the  close  of  his  seventy-first  year,  and  the  late  curious 
and  unquestionable  "boom"  of  the  old  man's  wide-spreading 
popularity,  and  that  of  his  "Leaves  of  Grass."  There  were 
thirty-five  in  the  room,  mostly  young,  but  some  old,  or  begin 
ning  to  be.  The  great  feature  was  Ingersoll's  utterance.  It  was 
probably,  in  its  way,  the  most  admirable  specimen  of  modern 
oratory  hitherto  delivered  in  the  English  language,  immense  as 
such  praise  may  sound.  It  was  40  to  50  minutes  long,  altogether 
without  notes,  in  a  good  voice,  low  enough  and  not  too  low, 
style  easy,  rather  colloquial  (over  and  over  again  saying  "  you  " 
to  Whitman  who  sat  opposite,)  sometimes  markedly  impassion'd, 
once  or  twice  humorous — amid  his  whole  speech,  from  interior 
fires  and  volition,  pulsating  and  swaying  like  a  first-class  Anda- 
lusian  dancer. 

And  such  a  critical  dissection,  and  flattering  summary  !  The 
Whitmanites  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  were  fully  satisfied  ; 
and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal,  for  they  have  not  put  their  claims 
low,  by  a  long  shot.  Indeed  it  was  a  tremendous  talk  !  Phys 
ically  and  mentally  Ingersoll  (he  had  been  working  all  day  in 
New  York,  talking  in  court  and  in  his  office,)  is  now  at  his  best, 
like  mellow'd  wine,  or  a  just  ripe  apple ;  to  the  artist-sense,  too, 
looks  at  his  best — not  merely  like  a  bequeath'd  Roman  bust  or 
fine  smooth  marble  Cicero-head,  or  even  Greek  Plato  ;  for  he  is 
modern  and  vital  and  vein'd  and  American,  and  (far  more  than 
the  age  knows,)  justifies  us  all. 

We  cannot  give  a  full  report  of  this  most  remarkable  talk  and 
supper  (which  was  curiously  conversational  and  Greek-like)  but 
must  add  the  following  significant  bit  of  it. 

After  the  speaking,  and  just  before  the  close,  Mr.  Whitman 
reverted  to  Colonel  Ingersoll's  tribute  to  his  poems,  pronouncing 
it  the  cap-sheaf  of  all  commendation  that  he  had  ever  receiv'd. 
Then,  his  mind  still  dwelling  upon  theColonel's  religious  doubts, 
he  went  on  to  say  that  what  he  himself  had  in  his  mind  when  he 
wrote  "  Leaves  of  Grass  "  was  not  only  to  depict  American  life, 
as  it  existed,  and  to  show  the  triumphs  of  science,  and  the  poetry 
in  common  things,  and  the  full  of  an  individual  democratic 


50  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

humanity,  for  the  aggregate,  but  also  to  show  that  there  was 
behind  all  something  which  rounded  and  completed  it.  "  For 
what,"  he  ask'd,  "would  this  life  be  without  immortality?  It 
would  be  as  a  locomotive,  the  greatest  triumph  of  modern  sci 
ence,  with  no  train  to  draw  after  it.  If  the  spiritual  is  not 
behind  the  material,  to  what  purpose  is  the  material  ?  What  is 
this  world  without  a  further  Divine  purpose  in  it  all  ?  " 
Colonel  Ingersoll  repeated  his  former  argument  in  reply. 

FEELING   FAIRLY. 

Friday,  July  27,  1890. — Feeling  fairly  these  days,  and  even 
jovial — sleep  and  appetite  good  enough  to  be  thankful  for — 
had  a  dish  of  Maryland  blackberries,  some  good  rye  bread  and 
a  cup  of  tea,  for  my  breakfast — relish' d  all — fine  weather — bright 
sun  to-day — pleasant  north-west  breeze  blowing  in  the  open  win 
dow  as  I  sit  here  in  my  big  rattan  chair — two  great  fine  roses  (white 
and  red,  blooming,  fragrant,  sent  by  mail  by  W.  S.  K.  and  wife, 
Mass.)  are  in  a  glass  of  water  on  the  table  before  me. 

Am  now  in  my  72d  year. 

OLD   BROOKLYN   DAYS. 

It  must  have  been  in  1822  or  '3  that  I  first  came  to  live  in 
Brooklyn.  Lived  first  in  Front  street,  not  far  from  what  was 
then  call'd  "the  New  Ferry,"  wending  the  river  from  the  foot 
of  Catharine  (or  Main)  street  to  New  York  City. 

I  was  a  little  child  (was  born  in  1819,)  but  tramp'd  freely  about 
the  neighborhood  and  town,  even  then ;  was  often  on  the  afore 
said  New  Ferry ;  remember  how  I  was  petted  and  deadheaded  by 
the  gatekeepers  and  deckhands  (all  such  fellows  are  kind  to  little 
children,)  and  remember  the  horses  that  seem'd  to  me  so  queer 
as  they  trudg'd  around  in  the  central  houses  of  the  boats,  making 
the  water-power.  (For  it  was  just  on  the  eve  of  the  steam-engine, 
which  was  soon  after  introduced  on  the  ferries.)  Edward  Cope- 
land  (afterward  Mayor)  had  a  grocery  store  then  at  the  corner  of 
Front  and  Catharine  streets. 

Presently  we  Whitmans  all  moved  up  to  Tillary  street,  near 
Adams,  where  my  father,  who  was  a  carpenter,  built  a  house 
for  himself  and  us  all.  It  was  from  here  I  '  assisted '  the  per 
sonal  coming  of  Lafayette  in  1824-5  to  Brooklyn.  He  came 
over  the  Old  Ferry,  as  the  now  Fulton  Ferry  (partly  navigated 
quite  up  to  that  day  by  'horse  boats,'  though  the  first  steamer 
had  begun  to  be  used  hereabouts)  was  then  call'd,  and  was  re- 
ceiv'd  at  the  foot  of  Fulton  street.  It  was  on  that  occasion  that 
the  corner-stone  of  the  Apprentices'  Library,  at  the  corner  of 
Cranberry  and  Henry  streets — since  pull'd  down — was  laid  by 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  ST 

Lafayette's  own  hands.  Numerous  children  arrived  on  the 
grounds,  of  whom  I  was  one,  and  were  assisted  by  several  gen 
tlemen  to  safe  spots  to  view  the  ceremony.  Among  others,  La 
fayette,  also  helping  the  children,  took  me  up — I  was  five  years 
old,  press' d  me  a  moment  to  his  breast — gave  me  a  kiss  and  set 
me  down  in  a  safe  spot.  Lafayette  was  at  that  time  between 
sixty-five  and  seventy  years  of  age,  with  a  manly  figure  and  a 
kind  face. 

TWO   QUESTIONS. 

An  editor  of  (or  in)  a  leading  monthly  magazine  (Harper's 
Monthly,  July,  1890,)  asks:  "A  hundred  years  from  now  will 
W.  W.  be  popularly  rated  a  great  poet — or  will  he  be  for 
gotten?"  .  .  .  A  mighty  ticklish  question — which  can  only  be 
left  for  a  hundred  years  hence — perhaps  more  than  that.  But 
whether  W.  W.  has  been  mainly  rejected  by  his  own  times  is  an 
easier  question  to  answer. 

All  along  from  1860  to  '91,  many  of  the  pieces  in  L  of  G, 
and  its  annexes,  were  first  sent  to  publishers  or  magazine  editors 
before  being  printed  in  the  L,  and  were  peremptorily  rejected  by 
them,  and  sent  back  to  their  author.  The  "  Eidolons  "  was  sent 
back  by  Dr.  H.,  of  "  Scribner's  Monthly"  with  a  lengthy,  very 
insulting  and  contemptuous  letter.  "To  the  Sun-Set  Breeze,"1 
was  rejected  by  the  editor  of  "  Harper's  Monthly  "  as  being  "  an 
improvisation  "  only.  "  On,  on  ye  jocund  twain  "  was  rejected 
by  the  "  Century  "  editor  as  being  personal  merely.  Several  of 
the  pieces  went  the  rounds  of  all  the  monthlies,  to  be  thus  sum 
marily  rejected. 

June,  '90. — The rejects  and  sends  back  my  little  poemr 

so  I  am  now  set  out  in  the  cold  by  every  big  magazine  and  pub 
lisher,  and  may  as  well  understand  and  admit  it — which  is  just  as 
well,  for  I  find  I  am  palpably  losing  my  sight  and  ratiocination. 

PREFA  CE  to  a  volume  of  essays  and  tales  by  Wm.  D.  O'  Con 
nor,  puff  d  posthumously  in  1891. 

A  hasty  memorandum,  not  particularly  for  Preface  to  the  fol 
lowing  tales,  but  to  put  on  record  my  respect  and  affection  for  as 
sane,  beautiful,  cute,  tolerant,  loving,  candid  and  free  and  fair- 
intention 'd  a  nature  as  ever  vivified  our  race. 

In  Boston,  1860,  I  first  met  WILLIAM  DOUGLAS  O'CONNOR.* 

*  Born  Jan.  2d,  1832.  When  grown,  lived  several  years  in  Boston,  and 
edited  journals  and  magazines  there — went  about  1861  to  Washington,  D.  C., 
and  became  a  U.  S.  clerk,  first  in  the  Light-House  Bureau,  and  then  in  the 
U.  S.  Life-Saving  Service,  in  which  branch  he  was  Assistant  Superintendent 
for  many  years — sicken'd  in  1887 — died  there  at  Washington,  May  9th,  1889. 


5  2  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

As  I  saw  and  knew  him  then,  in  his  2Qth  year,  and  for  twenty- 
five  further  years  along,  he  was  a  gallant,  handsome,  gay-hearted, 
fine-voiced,  glowing-eyed  man ;  lithe-moving  on  his  feet,  of 
healthy  and  magnetic  atmosphere  and  presence,  and  the  most 
welcome  company  in  the  world.  He  was  a  thorough-going  anti- 
slavery  believer,  speaker  and  writer,  (doctrinaire,)  and  though  I 
took  a  fancy  to  him  from  the  first,  I  remember  I  fear'd  his  ardent 
abolitionism — was  afraid  it  would  probably  keep  us  apart.  (I 
was  a  decided  and  out-spoken  anti-slavery  believer  myself,  then 
and  always ;  but  shy'd  from  the  extremists,  the  red-hot  fellows 
of  those  times.)  O'C.  was  then  correcting  the  proofs  of  Har 
rington,  an  eloquent  and  fiery  novel  he  had  written,  and  which 
was  printed  just  before  the  commencement  of  the  Secession  War. 
He  was  already  married,  the  father  of  two  fine  little  children, 
and  was  personally  and  intellectually  the  most  attractive  man  I 
had  ever  met. 

Last  of  '62  I  found  myself  led  towards  the  war-field — went  to 
Washington  City — (to  become  absorb' d  in  the  armies,  and  in  the 
big  hospitals,  and  to  get  work  in  one  of  the  Departments,) — and 
there  I  met  and  resumed  friendship,  and  found  warm  hospitality 
from  O'C.  and  his  noble  New  England  wife.  They  had  just  lost 
by  death  their  little  child-boy,  Philip  ;  and  O'C.  was  yet  feeling 
serious  about  it.  The  youngster  had  been  vaccinated  against  the 
threatening  of  small-pox  which  alarm'd  the  city ;  but  somehow 
it  led  to  worse  results  than  it  was  intended  to  ward  off — or  at  any 
rate  O'C.  thought  that  proved  the  cause  of  the  boy's  death.  He 
had  one  child  left,  a  fine  bright  little  daughter,  and  a  great  com 
fort  to  her  parents.  (Dear  Jeannie  !  She  grew  up  a  most  accom- 
plish'd  and  superior  young  woman — declined  in  health,  and  died 
about  1 88 1.) 

On  through  for  months  and  years  to  '73  I  saw  and  talk'd  with 
O'C.  almost  daily.  I  had  soon  got  employment,  first  for  a  short 
time  in  the  Indian  Bureau  (in  the  Interior  Department,)  and  then 
for  a  long  while  in  the  Attorney  General's  Office.  The  Secession 
War,  with  its  tide  of  varying  fortunes,  excitements — President 
Lincoln  and  the  daily  sight  of  him — the  doings  in  Congress  and 
at  the  State  Capitals — the  news  from  the  fields  and  campaigns, 
and  from  foreign  governments — my  visits  to  the  Army  Hospitals, 
daily  and  nightly,  soon  absorbing  everything  else, — with  a 
hundred  matters,  occurrences,  personalities, — (Greeley,  Wendell 
Phillips,  the  parties,  the  Abolitionists,  &c.) — were  the  subjects 
of  our  talk  and  discussion.  I  am  not  sure  from  what  I  heard 
then,  but  O'C.  was  cut  out  for  a  first-class  public  speaker  or 
forensic  advocate.  No  audience  or  jury  could  have  stood  out 
against  him.  He  had  a  strange  charm  of  physiologic  voice. 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  53 

He  had  a  power  and  sharp-cut  faculty  of  statement  and  persua 
siveness  beyond  any  man's  else.  I  know  it  well,  for  I  have  felt 
it  many  a  time.  If  not  as  orator,  his  forte  was  as  critic,  newer, 
deeper  than  any  :  also,  as  literary  author.  One  of  his  traits  was 
that  while  he  knew  all,  and  welcom'd  all  sorts  of  great  genre  lit 
erature,  all  lands  and  times,  from  all  writers  and  artists,  and  not 
only  tolerated  each,  and  defended  every  attack' d  literary  person 
with  a  skill  or  heart-catholicism  that  I  never  saw  equal'd — in 
variably  advocated  and  excused  them — he  kept  an  idiosyncrasy 
and  identity  of  his  own  very  mark'd,  and  without  special  tinge 
or  undue  color  from  any  source.  He  always  applauded  the  free 
dom  of  the  masters,  whence  and  whoever.  I  remember  his  special 
defences  of  Byron,  Burns,  Poe,  Rabelais,  Victor  Hugo,  George 
Sand,  and  others.  There  was  always  a  little  touch  of  pensive 
cadence  in  his  superb  voice ;  and  I  think  there  was  something 
of  the  same  sadness  in  his  temperament  and  nature.  Perhaps, 
too,  in  his  literary  structure.  But  he  was  a  very  buoyant,  jovial, 
good-natured  companion. 

So  much  for  a  hasty  melanged  reminiscence  and  note  of  Wil 
liam  O'Connor,  my  dear,  dear  friend,  and  staunch,  (probably 
my  staunchest)  literary  believer  and  champion  from  the  first,  and 
throughout  without  halt  or  demur,  for  twenty-five  years.  No 
better  friend — none  more  reliable  through  this  life  of  one's  ups 
and  downs.  On  the  occurrence  of  the  latter  he  would  be  sure  to 
make  his  appearance  on  the  scene,  eager,  hopeful,  full  of  fight 
like  a  perfect  knight  of  chivalry.  For  he  was  a  born  sample  here 
in  the  i9th  century  of  the  flower  and  symbol  of  olden  time  first- 
class  knighthood.  Thrice  blessed  be  his  memory  !  W.  W. 

F'm  the  Engineering  Record,  New  York,  Dec.  13,  1890. 
AN   ENGINEER'S  OBITUARY. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON  WHITMAN  was  born  July  18,  1833,  in 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  from  a  father  of  English  stock,  and  mother 
(Louisa  Van  Velsor)  descended  from  Dutch  (Holland)  immigra 
tion.  His  early  years  were  spent  on  Long  Island,  either  in  the 
country  or  Brooklyn.  As  a  lad  he  show'd  a  tendency  for  sur 
veying  and  civil  engineering,  and  about  at  19  went  with  Chief 
Kirkwood,  who  was  then  prospecting  and  outlining  for  the  great 
city  water-works.  He  remain'd  at  that  construction  throughout, 
was  a  favorite  and  confidant  of  the  Chief,  and  was  successively 
promoted.  He  continued  also  under  Chief  Moses  Lane.  He 
married  in  1859,  and  not  long  after  was  invited  by  the  Board  of 
Public  Works  of  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  to  come  there  and  plan  and 
build  a  new  and  fitting  water-works  for  that  great  city.  Whitman 


54 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


accepted  the  call,  and  moved  and  settled  there,  and  had  been  a 
resident  of  St.  Louis  ever  since.  He  plann'd  and  built  the  works, 
which  were  very  successful,  and  remain' d  as  superintendent  and 
chief  for  nearly  20  years. 

Of  the  last  six  years  he  has  been  largely  occupied  as  consult 
ing  engineer  (divested  of  his  cares  and  position  in  St.  Louis,) 
and  has  engaged  in  public  constructions,  bridges,  sewers,  &c., 
West  and  Southwest,  and  especially  the  Memphis,  Tenn.,  city 
water-works. 

Thomas  J.  Whitman  was  a  theoretical  and  practical  mechanic 
of  superior  order,  founded  in  the  soundest  personal  and  profes 
sional  integrity.  He  was  a  great  favorite  among  the  young  en 
gineers  and  students ;  not  a  few  of  them  yet  remaining  in  Kings 
and  Queens  Counties,  and  New  York  City,  will  remember  "Jeff," 
with  old-time  good-will  and  affection.  He  was  mostly  self-taught, 
and  was  a  hard  student. 

He  had  been  troubled  of  late  years  from  a  bad  throat  and  from 
gastric  affection,  tending  on  typhoid,  and  had  been  rather  seri 
ously  ill  with  the  last  malady,  but  was  getting  over  the  worst  of 
it,  when  he  succumb'd  under  a  sudden  and  severe  attack  of  the 
heart.  He  died  at  St.  Louis,  November  25,  1890,  in  his  58th 
year.  Of  his  family,  the  wife  died  in  1873,  and  a  daughter, 
Mannahatta,  died  two  years  ago.  Another  daughter,  Jessie 
Louisa,  the  only  child  left,  is  now  living  in  St.  Louis. 

[When  Jeff  was  born  I  was  in  my  151)1  year,  and  had  much 
care  of  him  for  many  years  afterward,  and  he  did  not  separate 
from  me.  He  was  a  very  handsome,  healthy,  affectionate,  smart 
child,  and  would  sit  on  my  lap  or  hang  on  my  neck  half  an  hour 
at  a  time.  As  he  grew  a  big  boy  he  liked  outdoor  and  water 
sports,  especially  boating.  We  would  often  go  down  summers  to 
Peconic  Bay,  east  end  of  Long  Island,  and  over  to  Shelter  Island. 
I  loved  long  rambles,  and  he  carried  his  fowling-piece.  O,  what 
happy  times,  weeks  !  Then  in  Brooklyn  and  New  York  City  he 
learn'd  printing,  and  work'd  awhile  at  it ;  but  eventually  (with 
my  approval)  he  went  to  employment  at  land  surveying,  and 
merged  in  the  studies  and  work  of  topographical  engineer ;  this 
satisfied  him,  and  he  continued  at  it.  He  was  of  noble  nature 
from  the  first ;  very  good-natured,  very  plain,  very  friendly.  O, 
how  we  loved  each  other — how  many  jovial  good  times  we  had  ! 
Once  we  made  a  long  trip  from  New  York  City  down  over  the 
Allegheny  Mountains  (the  National  Road)  and  via  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  Rivers,  from  Cairo  to  New  Orleans.] 

God's  blessing  on  your  name  and  memory,  dear  brother  Jeff! 

W.  W. 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  55 

OLD   ACTORS,  SINGERS,  SHOWS,  &c.,  IN   NEW  YORK. 

Flitting  mention — (with,  much  left  out.) 

SEEMS  to  me  I  ought  acknowledge  my  debt  to  actors,  singers, 
public  speakers,  conventions,  and  the  Stage  in  New  York,  my 
youthful  days,  from  1835  onward — say  to  '60  or  '61 — and  to 
plays  and  operas  generally.  (Which  nudges  a  pretty  big  dis 
quisition  :  of  course  it  should  be  all  elaborated  and  penetrated 
more  deeply — but  I  will  here  give  only  some  flitting  mentionings 
of  my  youth.)  Seems  to  me  now  when  I  look  back,  the  Italian 
contralto  Marietta  Alboni  (she  is  living  yet,  in  Paris,  1891,  in 
good  condition,  good  voice  yet,  considering)  with  the  then 
prominent  histrions  Booth,  Edwin  Forrest,  and  Fanny  Kemble 
and  the  Italian  singer  Bettini,  have  had  the  deepest  and  most 
lasting  effect  upon  me.  I  should  like  well  if  Madame  Alboni 
and  the  old  composer  Verdi,  (and  Bettini  the  tenor,  if  he  is 
living)  could  know  how  much  noble  pleasure  and  happiness 
they  gave  me,  and  how  deeply  I  always  remember  them  and 
thank  them  to  this  day.  For  theatricals  in  literature  and  doubt 
less  upon  me  personally,  including  opera,  have  been  of  course 
serious  factors.  (The  experts  and  musicians  of  my  present  friends 
claim  that  the  new  Wagner  and  his  pieces  belong  far  more  truly 
to  me,  and  I  to  them.  Very  likely.  But  I  was  fed  and  bred 
under  the  Italian  dispensation,  and  absorb' d  it,  and  doubtless 
show  it.) 

As  a  young  fellow,  when  possible  I  always  studied  a  play  or 
libretto  quite  carefully  over,  by  myself,  (sometimes  twice  through) 
before  seeing  it  on  the  stage ;  read  it  the  day  or  two  days  before. 
Tried  both  ways — not  reading  some  beforehand ;  but  I  found  I 
gain'd  most  by  getting  that  sort  of  mastery  first,  if  the  piece  had 
depth.  (Surface  effects  and  glitter  were  much  less  thought  of  I 
am  sure  those  times.)  There  were  many  fine  old  plays,  neither 
tragedies  nor  comedies — the  names  of  them  quite  unknown  to 
to-day's  current  audiences.  "All  is  not  Gold  that  Glitters,"  in 
which  Charlotte  Cushman  had  a  superbly  enacted  part,  was  of 
that  kind.  C.  C.,  who  revel'd  in  them,  was  great  in  such  pieces ; 
I  think  better  than  in  the  heavy  popular  roles. 

We  had  some  fine  music  those  days.  We  had  the  English 
opera  of  "  Cinderella  "  (with  Henry  Placide  as  the  pompous  old 
father,  an  unsurpassable  bit  of  comedy  and  music.)  We  had 
Bombastes  Furioso.  Must  have  been  in  1844  (or  '5)  I  saw 
Charles  Kean  and  Mrs.  Kean  (Ellen  Tree) — saw  them  in  the 
Park  in  Shakspere's  "King  John."  He,  of  course,  was  the 
chief  character.  She  play'd  Queen  Constance.  Tom  Hamblin 
was  Faulconbridge^  and  probably  the  best  ever  on  the  stage.  It 


56  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

was  an  immense  show-piece,  too ;  lots  of  grand  set  scenes  and 
fine  armor-suits  and  all  kinds  of  appointments  imported  from 
London  (where  it  had  been  first  render'd.)  The  large  brass 
bands — the  three  or  four  hundred  "  supes  " — the  interviews  be 
tween  the  French  and  English  armies — the  talk  with  Hubert  (and 
the  hot  irons)  the  delicious  acting  of  Prince  Arthur  (Mrs.  Rich 
ardson,  I  think) — and  all  the  fine  blare  and  court  pomp — I  re 
member  to  this  hour.  The  death-scene  of  the  King  in  the  orchard 
of  Swinstead  Abbey,  was  very  effective.  Kean  rush'd  in,  gray- 
pale  and  yellow,  and  threw  himself  on  a  lounge  in  the  open. 
His  pangs  were  horribly  realistic.  (He  must  have  taken  lessons 
in  some  hospital.) 

Fanny  Kemble  play'd  to  wonderful  effect  in  such  pieces  as 
"  Fazio,  or  the  Italian  wife."  The  turning-point  was  jealousy. 
It  was  a  rapid-running,  yet  heavy-timber' d,  tremendous  wrench 
ing,  passionate  play.  Such  old  pieces  always  seem'd  to  me  built 
like  an  ancient  ship  of  the  line,  solid  and  lock'd  from  keel  up — 
oak  and  metal  and  knots.  One  of  the  finest  characters  was  a 
great  court  lady,  Aldabella,  enacted  by  Mrs.  Sharpe.  O  how  it 
all  entranced  us,  and  knock' d  us  about,  as  the  scenes  swept  on 
like  a  cyclone  ! 

Saw  Hackett  at  the  old  Park  many  times,  and  remember  him 
well.  His  renderings  were  first-rate  in  everything.  He  inaugu 
rated  the  true  "  Rip  Van  Winkle,"  and  look'd  and  acted  and 
dialogued  it  to  perfection  (he  was  of  Dutch  breed,  and  brought 
up  among  old  Holland  descendants  in  Kings  and  Queens  coun 
ties,  Long  Island.)  The  play  and  the  acting  of  it  have  been 
adjusted  to  please  popular  audiences  since  ;  but  there  was  in  that 
original  performance  certainly  something  of  a  far  higher  order, 
more  art,  more  reality,  more  resemblance,  a  bit  of  fine  pathos,  a 
lofty  brogue,  beyond  anything  afterward. 

One  of  my  big  treats  was  the  rendering  at  the  old  Park  of 
Shakspere's  "Tempest"  in  musical  version.  There  was  a  very 
fine  instrumental  band,  not  numerous,  but  with  a  capital  leader. 
Mrs.  Austin  was  the  Artel,  and  Peter  Richings  the  Caliban;  both 
excellent.  The  drunken  song  of  the  latter  has  probably  been 
never  equal1  d.  The  perfect  actor  Clarke  (old  Clarke)  was  Pros- 
pero. 

Yes ;  there  were  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn  some  fine  non 
technical  singing  performances,  concerts,  such  as  the  Hutchinson 
band,  three  brothers,  and  the  sister,  the  red-cheek'd  New  England 
carnation,  sweet  Abby;  sometimes  plaintive  and  balladic — some 
times  anti-slavery,  anti-calomel,  and  comic.  There  were  concerts 
by  Templeton,  Russell,  Dempster,  the  old  Alleghanian  band,  and 
many  others.  Then  we  had  lots  of  "  negro  minstrels,"  with  cap- 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 


57 


ital  character  songs  and  voices.  I  often  saw  Rice  the  original 
"  Jim  Crow  "  at  the  old  Park  Theatre  filling  up  the  gap  in  some 
short  bill — and  the  wild  chants  and  dances  were  admirable — 
probably  ahead  of  anything  since.  Every  theatre  had  some 
superior  voice,  and  it  was  common  to  give  a  favorite  song 
between  the  acts.  "  The  Sea  "  at  the  bijou  Olympic,  (Broadway 
near  Grand,)  was  always  welcome  from  a  little  Englishman  named 
Edwin,  a  good  balladist.  At  the  Bowery  the  loves  of  "  Sweet 
William," 

"  When  on  the  Downs  the  fleet  was  moor'd," 

always  bro't  an  encore,  and  sometimes  a  treble. 

I  remember  Jenny  Lind  and  heard  her  (1850  I  think)  several 
times.  She  had  the  most  brilliant,  captivating,  popular  musical 
style  and  expression  of  any  one  known  ;  (the  canary,  and  several 
other  sweet  birds  are  wondrous  fine — but  there  is  something  in 
song  that  goes  deeper — isn't  there?) 

The  great  "Egyptian  Collection"  was  well  up  in  Broadway, 
and  I  got  quite  acquainted  with  Dr.  Abbott,  the  proprietor — paid 
many  visits  there,  and  had  long  talks  with  him,  in  connection 
with  my  readings  of  many  books  and  reports  on  Egypt — its 
antiquities,  history,  and  how  things  and  the  scenes  really  look, 
and  what  the  old  relics  stand  for,  as  near  as  we  can  now  get. 
(Dr.  A.  was  an  Englishman  of  say  54 — had  been  settled  in  Cairo 
as  physician  for  25  years,  and  all  that  time  was  collecting  these 
relics,  and  sparing  no  time  or  money  seeking  and  getting  them. 
By  advice  and  for  a  change  of  base  for  himself,  he  brought  the 
collection  to  America.  But  the  whole  enterprise  was  a  fearful 
disappointment,  in  the  pay  and  commercial  part.)  As  said,  I 
went  to  the  Egyptian  Museum  many  many  times ;  sometimes  had 
it  all  to  myself — delved  at  the  formidable  catalogue — and  on  sev 
eral  occasions  had  the  invaluable  personal  talk,  correction,  illus 
tration  and  guidance  of  Dr.  A.  himself.  He  was  very  kind  and 
helpful  to  me  in  those  studies  and  examinations;  once,  by  appoint 
ment,  he  appear'd  in  full  and  exact  Turkish  (Cairo)  costume, 
which  long  usage  there  had  made  habitual  to  him. 

One  of  the  choice  places  of  New  York  to  me  then  was  the 
"Phrenological  Cabinet"  of  Fowler  &  Wells,  Nassau  street 
near  Beekman.  Here  were  all  the  busts,  examples,  curios  and 
books  of  that  study  obtainable.  I  went  there  often,  and  once 
for  myself  had  a  very  elaborate  and  leisurely  examination  and 
"chart  of  bumps"  written  out  (I  have  it  yet,)  by  Nelson  Fow 
ler  (or  was  it  Sizer?)  there. 

And  who  remembers  the  renown'd  New  York  "Tabernacle" 
of  those  days  "before  the  war"?  It  was  on  the  east  side  of 


58  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

Broadway,  near  Pearl  street — was  a  great  turtle-shaped  hall,  and 
you  had  to  walk  back  from  the  street  entrance,  thro'  a  long 
wide  corridor  to  get  to  it — was  very  strong — had  an  immense 
gallery — altogether  held  three  or  four  thousand  people.  Here 
the  huge  annual  conventions  of  the  windy  and  cyclonic  "re 
formatory  societies"  of  those  times  were  held — especially  the 
tumultuous  Anti-Slavery  ones.  I  remember  hearing  Wendell 
Phillips,  Emerson,  Cassius  Clay,  John  P.  Hale,  Beecher,  Fred 
Douglas,  the  Burleighs,  Garrison,  and  others.  Sometimes  the 
Hutchinsons  would  sing — very  fine.  Sometimes  there  were 
angry  rows.  A  chap  named  Isaiah  Rhynders,  a  fierce  politician 
of  those  days,  with  a  band  of  robust  supporters,  would  attempt 
to  contradict  the  speakers  and  break  up  the  meetings.  But  the 
Anti-Slavery,  and  Quaker,  and  Temperance,  and  Missionary  and 
other  conventicles  and  speakers  were  tough,  tough,  and  always 
maintained  their  ground,  and  carried  out  their  programs  fully. 
I  went  frequently  to  these  meetings,  May  after  May — learn'd 
much  from  them — was  sure  to  be  on  hand  when  J.  P.  Hale  or 
Cash  Clay  made  speeches. 

There  were  also  the  smaller  and  handsome  halls  of  the  His 
torical  and  Athenaeum  Societies  up  on  Broadway.  I  very  well 
remember  W.  C.  Bryant  lecturing  on  Homoeopathy  in  one  of 
them,  and  attending  two  or  three  addresses  by  R.  W.  Emerson 
in  the  other. 

There  was  a  series  of  plays  and  dramatic  genre  characters  by  a 
gentleman  bill'd  as  Ranger — very  fine,  better  than  merely  tech 
nical,  full  of  exquisite  shades,  like  the  light  touches  of  the  violin 
in  the  hands  of  a  master.  There  was  the  actor  Anderson,  who 
brought  us  Gerald  Griffin's  "Gisippus,"  and  play'd  it  to  ad 
miration.  Among  the  actors  of  those  times  I  recall :  Cooper, 
Wallack,  Tom  Hamblin,  Adams  (several),  Old  Gates,  Scott,  Wm. 
Sefton,  John  Sefton,  Geo.  Jones,  Mitchell,  Seguin,  Old  Clarke, 
Richings,  Fisher,  H.  Placide,  T.  Placide,  Thorne,  Ingersoll,  Gale 
(Mazeppa) Edwin,  Horncastle.  Some  of  thewomen  hastilyremem- 
ber'd  were:  Mrs.  Vernon,  Mrs.  Pritchard,  Mrs.  McClure,  Mary 
Taylor,  Clara  Fisher,  Mrs.  Richardson,  Mrs.  Flynn.  Then  the 
singers,  English,  Italian  and  other:  Mrs.  Wood,  Mrs.  Seguin, 
Mrs.  Austin,  Grisi,  La  Grange,  Steffanone,  Bosio,  Truffi,  Parodi, 
Vestvali,  Bertucca,  Jenny  Lind,  Gazzaniga,  Laborde.  And  the 
opera  men  :  Bettini,  Badiali,  Marini,  Mario,  Brignoli,  Amodio, 
Beneventano,  and  many,  many  others  whose  names  I  do  not  at 
this  moment  recall. 

In  another  paper  I  have  described  the  elder  Booth,  and  the 
Bowery  Theatre  of  those  times.  Afterward  there  was  the  Chat 
ham.  The  elder  Thorne,  Mrs.  Thorne,  William  and  John  Sef- 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  59 

ton,  Kirby,  Brougham,  and  sometimes  Edwin  Forrest  himself 
play'd  there.  I  remember  them  all,  and  many  more,  and  espe 
cially  the  fine  theatre  on  Broadway  near  Pearl,  in  1855  and  '6. 

There  were  very  good  circus  performances,  or  horsemanship, 
in  New  York  and  Brooklyn.  Every  winter  in  the  first-named 
city,  a  regular  place  in  the  Bowery,  nearly  opposite  the  old 
theatre  j  fine  animals  and  fine  riding,  which  I  often  witness'd. 
(Remember  seeing  near  here,  a  young,  fierce,  splendid  lion, 
presented  by  an  African  Barbary  Sultan  to  President  Andrew 
Jackson.  The  gift  comprised  also  a  lot  of  jewels,  a  fine  steel 
sword,  and  an  Arab  stallion ;  and  the  lion  was  made  over  to  a 
show-man.) 

If  it  is  worth  while  I  might  add  that  there  was  a  small  but 
well-appointed  amateur-theatre  up  Broadway,  with  the  usual 
stage,  orchestra,  pit,  boxes,  &c.,  and  that  I  was  myself  a  mem 
ber  for  some  time,  and  acted  parts  in  it  several  times — "second 
parts  "  as  they  were  call'd.  Perhaps  it  too  was  a  lesson,  or  help'd 
that  way ;  at  any  rate  it  was  full  of  fun  and  enjoyment. 

And  so  let  us  turn  off  the  gas.  Out  in  the  brilliancy  of  the 
footlights — filling  the  attention  of  perhaps  a  crowded  audience, 
and  making  many  a  breath  and  pulse  swell  and  rise — O  so  much 
passion  and  imparted  life ! — over  and  over  again,  the  season 
through — walking,  gesticulating,  singing,  reciting  his  or  her 
part — But  then  sooner  or  later  inevitably  wending  to  the  flies  or 
exit  door — vanishing  to  sight  and  ear — and  never  materializing 
on  this  earth's  stage  again  ! 

SOME  PERSONAL  AND  OLD-AGE  JOTTINGS. 
ANYTHING  like  unmitigated  acceptance  of  my  Leaves  of  Grass 
book,  and  heart-felt  response  to  it,  in  a  popular  however  faint  de 
gree,  bubbled  forth  as  a  fresh  spring  from  the  ground  in  England 
in  1876.  The  time  was  a  critical  and  turning  point  in  my  per 
sonal  and  literary  life.  Let  me  revert  to  my  memorandum  book, 
Camden,  New  Jersey,  that  year,  fill'd  with  addresses,  receipts, 
purchases,  &c.,  of  the  two  volumes  pub'd  then  by  myself — the 
Leaves,  and  the  Two  Rivulets — some  home  customers  for  them, 
but  mostly  from  the  British  Islands.  I  was  seriously  paralyzed 
from  the  Secession  war,  poor,  in  debt,  was  expecting  death,  (the 
doctors  put  four  chances  out  of  five  against  me,) — and  I  had  the 
books  printed  during  the  lingering  interim  to  occupy  the  tedious- 
ness  of  glum  days  and  nights.  Curiously,  the  sale  abroad  proved 
prompt,  and  what  one  might  call  copious :  the  names  came  in 
lists  and  the  money  with  them,  by  foreign  mail.  The  price  was 
$io  a  set.  Both  the  cash  and  the  emotional  cheer  were  deep 
medicines;  many  paid  double  or  treble  price,  (Tennyson  and 


60  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

Ruskin  did,)  and  many  sent  kind  and  eulogistic  letters ;  ladies, 
clergymen,  social  leaders,  persons  of  rank,  and  high  officials. 
Those  blessed  gales  from  the  British  Islands  probably  (certainly) 
saved  me.  Here  are  some  of  the  names,  for  I  w'd  like  to  pre 
serve  them  :  Wm.  M.  and  D.  G.  Rossetti,  Lord  Houghton,  Edwd. 
Dowden,  Mrs.  Ann  Gilchrist,  Keningale  Cook,  Edwd.  Carpenter, 
Therese  Simpson,  Rob't  Buchanan,  Alfred  Tennyson,  John  Rus 
kin,  C.  G.  Gates,  E.  T.  Wilkinson,  T.  L.  Warren,  C.  W.  Reynell, 
W.  B.  Scott,  A.  G.  Dew  Smith,  E.  W.  Gosse,  T.  W.  Rolleston, 
Geo.  Wallis,  Rafe  Leicester,  Thos.  Dixon,  N.  MacColl,  Mrs.  Mat 
thews,  R.  Hannah,  Geo.  Saintsbury,  R.  S.  Watson,  Godfrey  and 
Vernon  Lushington,  G.  H.  Lewes,  G.  H.  Boughton,  Geo.  Fraser, 
W.  T.  Arnold,  A.  Ireland,  Mrs.  M.  Taylor,  M.  D.  Conway,  Benj. 
Eyre,  E.  Dannreather,  Rev.  T.  E.  Brown,  C.  W.  Sheppard,  E.  J. 
A.  Balfour,  P.  B.  Marston,  A.  C.  De  Burgh,  J.  H.  McCarthy,  J. 
H.  Ingram,  Rev.  R.  P.  Graves,  Lady  Mount-temple,  F.  S.  Ellis, 
W.  Brockie,  Rev.  A.  B.  Grosart,  Lady  Hardy,  Hubert  Herkomer, 
Francis  Hueffer,  H.  G.  Dakyns,  R.  L.  Nettleship,  W.  J.  Stillman, 
Miss  Blind,  Madox  Brown,  H.  R.  Ricardo,  Messrs.  O'Grady  and 
Tyrrel ;  and  many,  many  more. 

Severely  scann'd,  it  was  perhaps  no  very  great  or  vehement 
success ;  but  the  tide  had  palpably  shifted  at  any  rate,  and  the 
sluices  were  turn'd  into  my  own  veins  and  pockets.  That  emo 
tional,  audacious,  open-handed,  friendly-mouth'd  just-opportune 
English  action,  I  say,  pluck'd  me  like  a  brand  from  the  burning, 
and  gave  me  life  again,  to  finish  my  book,  since  ab't  completed. 
I  do  not  forget  it,  and  shall  not ;  and  if  I  ever  have  a  biographer 
I  charge  him  to  put  it  in  the  narrative.  I  have  had  the  noblest 
friends  and  backers  in  America;  Wm.  O'Connor,  Dr.  R.  M, 
Bucke,  John  Burroughs,  Geo.  W.  Childs,  good  ones  in  Boston  r 
and  Carnegie  and  R.  G.  Ingersoll  in  New  York ;  and  yet  per 
haps  the  tenderest  and  gratefulest  breath  of  my  heart  has  gone, 
and  ever  goes,  over  the  sea-gales  across  the  big  pond. 

About  myself  at  present.  I  will  soon  enter  upon  my  73d  year, 
if  I  live — have  pass'd  an  active  life,  as  country  school-teacher, 
gardener,  printer,  carpenter,  author  and  journalist,  domicil'd  in 
nearly  all  the  United  States  and  principal  cities,  North  and  South 
— went  to  the  front  (moving  about  and  occupied  as  army  nurse 
and  missionary)  during  the  Secession  war,  1861  to  '65,  and  in 
the  Virginia  hospitals  and  after  the  battles  of  that  time,  tending 
the  Northern  and  Southern  wounded  alike — work'd  down  South 
and  in  Washington  city  arduously  three  years — contracted  the 
paralysis  which  I  have  suffer'd  ever  since — and  now  live  in  a  little 
cottage  of  my  own,  near  the  Delaware  in  New  Jersey.  My  chief 
book,  unrhym'd  and  unmetrical  (it  has  taken  thirty  years,  peace 


GOOD-BYE  HY  FANCY.  6l 

and  war,  "a  horning")  has  its  aim  as  once  said,  "to  utter  the 
same  old  human  critter — but  now  in  Democratic  American  mod 
ern  and  scientific  conditions."  Then  I  have  publish'd  two  prose 
works  "Specimen  Days,"  and  a  late  one  "November  Boughs." 
(A  little  volume  "  Good-Bye  my  Fancy"  is  soon  to  be  out,  wh' 
will  finish  the  matter.)  I  do  not  propose  here  to  enter  the  much- 
fought  field  of  the  literary  criticism  of  any  of  those  works. 

But  for  a  few  portraiture  or  descriptive  bits.  To-day  in  the 
upper  of  a  little  wooden  house  of  two  stories  near  the  Delaware 
river,  east  shore,  sixty  miles  up  from  the  sea,  is  a  rather  large  20-by- 
20  low  ceiling'd  room  something  like  a  big  old  ship's  cabin.  The 
floor,  three  quarters  of  it  with  an  ingrain  carpet,  is  half  cover' d 
by  a  deep  litter  of  books,  papers,  magazines,  thrown-down  letters 
and  circulars,  rejected  manuscripts,  memoranda,  bits  of  light  or 
strong  twine,  a  bundle  to  be  "  express' d,"  and  two  or  three  ven 
erable  scrap  books.  In  the  room  stand  two  large  tables  (one  of 
ancient  St.  Domingo  mahogany  with  immense  leaves)  cover'd  by 
a  jumble  of  more  papers,  a  varied  and  copious  array  of  writing 
materials,  several  glass  and  china  vessels  or  jars,  some  with 
cologne-water,  others  with  real  honey,  granulated  sugar,  a  large 
bunch  of  beautiful  fresh  yellow  chrysanthemums,  some  letters 
and  envelopt  papers  ready  for  the  post  office,  many  photographs, 
and  a  hundred  indescribable  things  besides.  There  are  all  around 
many  books,  some  quite  handsome  editions,  some  half  cover'd 
by  dust,  some  within  reach,  evidently  used,  (good-sized  print,  no 
type  less  than  long  primer,)  some  maps,  the  Bible,  (the  strong 
cheap  edition  of  the  English  crown,)  Homer,  Shakspere,  Walter 
Scott,  Emerson,  Ticknor's  "Spanish  Literature,"  John  Carlyle's 
Dante,  Felton's  Greece,  George  Sand's  Consuelo,  a  very  choice 
little  Epictetus,  some  novels,  the  latest  foreign  and  American 
monthlies,  quarterlies,  and  so  on.  There  being  quite  a  strew  of 
printer's  proofs  and  slips,  and  the  daily  papers,  the  place  with  its 
quaint  old  fashion' d  calmness  has  also  a  smack  of  something  alert 
and  of  current  work.  There  are  several  trunks  and  depositaries 
back'd  up  at  the  walls ;  (one  well-bound  and  big  box  came  by 
express  lately  from  Washington  city,  after  storage  there  for  nearly 
twenty  years.)  Indeed  the  whole  room  is  a  sort  of  result  and 
storage  collection  of  my  own  past  life.  I  have  here  various  edi 
tions  of  my  own  writings,  and  sell  them  upon  request ;  one  is  a 
big  volume  of  complete  poems  and  prose,  1000  pages,  autograph, 
essays,  speeches,  portraits  from  life,  &c.  Another  is  a  little 
Leaves  of  Grass,  latest  date,  six  portraits,  morocco  bound,  in 
pocket-book  form. 

Fortunately  the  apartment  is  quite  roomy.  There  are  three 
windows  in  front.  At  one  side  is  the  stove,  with  a  cheerful  fire 


62  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

of  oak  wood,  near  by  a  good  supply  of  fresh  sticks,  whose  faint 
aroma  is  plain.  On  another  side  is  the  bed  with  white  coverlid 
and  woollen  blankets.  Toward  the  windows  is  a  huge  arm-chair, 
(a  Christmas  present  from  Thomas  Donaldson's  young  daughter 
and  son,  Philadelphia)  timber'd  as  by  some  stout  ship's  spars, 
yellow  polish'd,  ample,  with  rattan-woven  seat  and  back,  and  over 
the  latter  a  great  wide  wolf-skin  of  hairy  black  and  silver,  spread 
to  guard  against  cold  and  draught.  A  time-worn  look  and  scent 
of  old  oak  attach  both  to  the  chair  and  the  person  occupying 
it. 

But  probably  (even  at  the  charge  of  parrot  talk)  I  can  give  no 
more  authentic  brief  sketch  than  "  from  an  old  remembrance 
copy,"  where  I  have  lately  put  myself  on  record  as  follows:  Was 
born  May  31, 1819,  in  my  father's  farm-house,  at  West  Hills,  L.L, 
New  York  State.  My  parents'  folks  mostly  farmers  and  sailors — 
on  my  father's  side,  of  English — on  my  mother's,  (Van  Velsor's) 
from  Hollandic  immigration.  There  was,  first  and  last,  a  large 
family  of  children  ;  (I  was  the  second.)  We  moved  to  Brooklyn 
while  I  was  still  a  little  one  in  frocks — and  there  in  B.  I  grew  up 
out  of  frocks — then  as  child  and  boy  went  to  the  public  schools — 
then  to  work  in  a  printing  office.  When  only  sixteen  or  seven 
teen  years  old,  and  for  three  years  afterward,  I  went  to  teaching 
country  schools  down  in  Queens  and  Suffolk  counties,  Long 
Island,  and  "boarded  round."  Then,  returning  to  New  York, 
work'd  as  printer  and  writer,  (with  an  occasional  shy  at 
"poetry.") 

1 848-' 9. — About  this  time — after  ten  or  twelve  years  of  expe 
riences  and  work  and  lots  of  fun  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn — 
went  off  on  a  leisurely  journey  and  working  expedition  (my 
brother  Jeff  with  me)  through  all  the  Middle  States,  and  down 
the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers.  Lived  a  while  in  New  Orleans, 
and  work'd  there.  (Have  lived  quite  a  good  deal  in  the  South 
ern  States.)  After  a  time,  plodded  back  northward,  up  the  Mis 
sissippi,  the  Missouri,  &c.,  and  around  to,  and  by  way  of,  the 
great  lakes,  Michigan,  Huron  and  Erie,  to  Niagara  Falls  and 
Lower  Canada — finally  returning  through  Central  New  York,  and 
down  the  Hudson.  185 2-' 5 4 — Occupied  in  house-building  in 
Brooklyn.  (For  a  little  while  of  the  first  part  of  that  time  in 
printing  a  daily  and  weekly  paper.) 

1855. — Lost  my  dear  father  this  year  by  death.  .  .  .  Com 
menced  putting  Leaves  of  Grass  to  press,  for  good — after  many 
MSS.  doings  and  undoings — (I  had  great  trouble  in  leaving  out 
the  stock  "poetical"  touches — but  succeeded  at  last.)  The 
book  has  since  had  some  eight  hitches  or  stages  of  growth,  with 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  63 

one  annex,  (and  another  to  come  out  in  1891,  which  will  com 
plete  it.) 

1862. — In  December  of  this  year  went  down  to  the  field  of 
war  in  Virginia.  My  brother  George  reported  badly  wounded 
in  the  Fredericksburg  fight.  (For  1863  and  '64,  see  Specimen 
Days.)  1865  to  '71 — Had  a  place  as  clerk  (till  well  on  in  '73) 
in  the  Attorney  General's  Office,  Washington.  (New  York  and 
Brooklyn  seem  more  like  home,  as  I  was  born  near,  and  brought 
up  in  them,  and  lived,  man  and  boy,  for  30  years.  But  I  lived 
some  years  in  Washington,  and  have  visited,  and  partially  lived, 
in  most  of  the  Western  and  Eastern  cities.) 

1873. — This  year  lost,  by  death,  my  dear  dear  mother — and, 
just  before,  my  sister  Martha — the  two  best  and  sweetest  women 
I  have  ever  seen  or  known,  or  ever  expect  to  see.  Same  year, 
February,  a  sudden  climax  and  prostration  from  paralysis.  Had 
been  simmering  inside  for  several  years  ;  broke  out  during  those 
times  temporarily,  and  then  went  over.  But  now  a  serious  at 
tack,  beyond  cure.  Dr.  Drinkard,  my  Washington  physician, 
(and  a  first-rate  one,)  said  it  was  the  result  of  too  extreme  bodily 
and  emotional  strain  continued  at  Washington  and  "down  in 
front,"  in  1863,  '4  and  '5.  I  doubt  if  a  heartier,  stronger, 
healthier  physique,  more  balanced  upon  itself,  or  more  uncon 
scious,  more  sound,  ever  lived,  from  1835  to  '72-  My  greatest 
call  (Quaker)  to  go  around  and  do  what  I  could  there  in  those 
war-scenes  where  I  had  fallen,  among  the  sick  and  wounded,  was, 
that  I  seem'd  to  be  so  strong  and  well.  (I  consider'd  myself  in 
vulnerable.)  But  this  last  attack  shatter'd  me  completely.  Quit 
work  at  Washington,  and  moved  to  Camden,  New  Jersey — where 
I  have  lived  since,  receiving  many  buffets  and  some  precious 
caresses — and  now  write  these  lines.  Since  then,  (i874-'9i)  a 
long  stretch  of  illness,  or  half-illness,  with  occasional  lulls. 
During  these  latter,  have  revised  and  printed  over  all  my  books 
— Bro't  out  "November  Boughs" — and  at  intervals  leisurely  and 
exploringly  travel' d  to  the  Prairie  States,  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
Canada,  to  New  York,  to  my  birthplace  in  Long  Island,  and  to 
Boston.  But  physical  disability  and  the  war-paralysis  above 
alluded  to  have  settled  upon  me  more  and  more,  the  last  year  or 
so.  Am  now  (1891)  domicil'd,  and  have  been  for  some  years, 
in  this  little  old  cottage  and  lot  in  Mickle  Street,  Camden,  with 
a  house-keeper  and  man  nurse.  Bodily  I  am  completely  disabled, 
but  still  write  for  publication.  I  keep  generally  buoyant  spirits, 
write  often  as  there  comes  any  lull  in  physical  sufferings,  get  in 
the  sun  and  down  to  the  river  whenever  I  can,  retain  fair  appe 
tite,  assimilation  and  digestion,  sensibilities  acute  as  ever,  the 
strength  and  volition  of  my  right  arm  good,  eyesight  dimming, 


^4  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

but  brain  normal,  and  retain  my  heart's  and  soul's  unmitigated 
faith  not  only  in  their  own  original  literary  plans,  but  in  the 
essential  bulk  of  American  humanity  east  and  west,  north  and 
south,  city  and  country,  through  thick  and  thin,  to  the  last.  Nor 
must  I  forget,  in  conclusion,  a  special,  prayerful,  thankful  God's 
blessing  to  my  dear  firm  friends  and  personal  helpers,  men  and 
women,  home  and  foreign,  old  and  young. 

From  the  Camden  Post,  April  16,  '91. 
OUT   IN   THE  OPEN   AGAIN. 

WALT  WHITMAN  got  out  in  the  mid-April  sun  and  warmth  of 
yesterday,  propelled  in  his  wheel  chair,  the  first  time  after  four 
months  of  imprisonment  in  his  sick  room.  He  has  had  the 
worst  winter  yet,  mainly  from  grippe  and  gastric  troubles,  and 
threaten'd  blindness;  but  keeps  good  spirits,  and  has  a  new 
little  forthcoming  book  in  the  printer's  hands. 

AMERICA'S  BULK  AVERAGE. 

IF  I  were  ask'd  persona  to  specify  the  one  point  of  America's 
people  on  which  I  mainly  rely,  I  should  say  the  final  average  or 
bulk  quality  of  the  whole. 

Happy  indeed  w'd  I  consider  myself  to  give  a  fair  reflection 
and  representation  of  even  a  portion  of  shows,  questions,  hu 
manity,  events,  unfoldings,  thoughts,  &c.  &c.  my  age  in  these 
States. 

The  great  social,  political,  historic  function  of  my  time  has 
been  of  course  the  attempted  Secession  War. 

And  was  there  not  something  grand,  and  an  inside  proof  of 
perennial  grandeur,  in  that  war !  We  talk  of  our  age's  and  the 
States'  materialism — and  it  is  too  true.  But  how  amid  the  whole 
sordidness — the  entire  devotion  of  America,  at  any  price,  to  pecu 
niary  success,  merchandise — disregarding  all  but  business  and 
profit — this  war  for  a  bare  idea  and  abstraction — a  mere,  at  bot 
tom,  heroic  dream  and  reminiscence — burst  forth  in  its  great 
devouring  flame  and  conflagration  quickly  and  fiercely  spreading 
and  raging,  and  enveloping  all,  defining  in  two  conflicting  ideas 
— first  the  Union  cause — second  the  other,  a  strange  deadly  inter 
rogation  point,  hard  to  define — Can  we  not  now  safely  confess 
it  ?  with  magnificent  rays,  streaks  of  noblest  heroism,  fortitude, 
perseverance,  and  even  conscientiousness,  through  its  pervadingly 
malignant  darkness. 

What  an  area  and  rounded  field,  upon  the  whole — the  spirit, 
arrogance,  grim  tenacity  of  the  South — the  long  stretches  of 
murky  gloom — the  general  National  Will  below  and  behind  and 


GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY.  6S 

comprehending  all — not  once  really  wavering,  not  a  day,  not  an 
hour — What  could  be,  or  ever  can  be,  grander? 

As  in  that  war,  its  four  years — as  through  the  whole  history 
and  development  of  the  New  World — these  States  through  all 
trials,  processes,  eruptions,  deepest  dilemmas,  (often  straining, 
tugging  at  society's  heart-strings,  as  if  some  divine  curiosity 
would  find  out  how  much  this  democracy  could  stand,)  have  so 
far  finally  and  for  more  than  a  century  best  justified  themselves 
by  the  average  impalpable  quality  and  personality  of  the  bulk, 
the  People  en  masse.  ...  I  am  not  sure  but  my  main  and  chief 
however  indefinite  claim  for  any  page  of  mine  w'd  be  its  deriva 
tion,  or  seeking  to  derive  itself,  f 'm  that  average  quality  of  the 
American  bulk,  the  people,  and  getting  back  to  it  again. 

LAST  SAVED  ITEMS 

f'm  a  vast  batch  left  to  oblivion. 

IN  its  highest  aspect,  and  striking  its  grandest  average,  essen 
tial  Poetry  expresses  and  goes  along  with  essential  Religion — has 
been  and  is  more  the  adjunct,  and  more  serviceable  to  that  true 
religion  (for  of  course  there  is  a  false  one  and  plenty  of  it,)  than 
all  the  priests  and  creeds  and  churches  that  now  exist  or  have 
ever  existed — Even  while  the  temporary  prevalent  theory  and 
practice  of  poetry  is  merely  one-side  and  ornamental  and  dainty 
— a  love-sigh,  a  bit  of  jewelry,  a  feudal  conceit,  an  ingenious 
tale  or  intellectual  finesse,  adjusted  to  the  low  taste  and  calibre 
that  will  always  sufficiently  generally  prevail — (ranges  of  stairs 
necessary  to  ascend  the  higher.) 

The  sectarian,  church  and  doctrinal,  follies,  crimes,  fanat 
icisms,  aggregate  and  individual,  so  rife  all  thro'  history,  are 
proofs  of  the  radicalness  and  universality  of  the  indestructible 
element  of  humanity's  Religion,  just  as  much  as  any,  and  are 
the  other  side  of  it.  Just  as  disease  proves  health,  and  is  the 
other  side  of  it The  philosophy  of  Greece  taught  normal 
ity  and  the  beauty  of  life.  Christianity  teaches  how  to  endure 
illness  and  death.  I  have  wonder'd  whether  a  third  philosophy 
fusing  both,  and  doing  full  justice  to  both,  might  not  be  out 
lined. 

It  will  not  be  enough  to  say  that  no  Nation  ever  achiev'd  mate 
rialistic,  political  and  money-making  successes,  with  general 
physical  comfort,  as  fully  as  the  United  States  of  America  are 
to-day  achieving  them.  I  know  very  well  that  those  are  the  in 
dispensable  foundations — the  sine  qua  non  of  moral  and  heroic 
(poetic)  fruitions  to  come.  For  if  those  pre-successes  were  all — 
5 


66  GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY. 

if  they  ended  at  that — if  nothing  more  were  yielded  than  so  far 
appears — a  gross  materialistic  prosperity  only — America,  tried  by 
subtlest  tests,  were  a  failure — has  not  advanced  the  standard  of 
humanity  a  bit  further  than  other  nations.  Or,  in  plain  terms, 
has  but  inherited  and  enjoy'd  the  results  of  ordinary  claims  and 
preceding  ages. 

Nature  seem'd  to  use  me  a  long  while — myself  all  well,  able, 
strong  and  happy — to  portray  power,  freedom,  health.  But 
after  a  while  she  seems  to  fancy,  may-be  I  can  see  and  under 
stand  it  all  better  by  being  deprived  of  most  of  those. 

How  difficult  it  is  to  add  anything  more  to  literature — and 
how  unsatisfactory  for  any  earnest  spirit  to  serve  merely  the 
amusement  of  the  multitude  !  (It  even  seems  to  me,  said  H. 
Heine,  more  invigorating  to  accomplish  something  bad  than 
something  empty.) 

The  Highest  said  :   Don't  let  us  begin  so  low — isn't  our  range 

too  coarse — too  gross? The  Soul  answer'd:  No,  not  when 

we  consider  what  it  is  all  for — the  end  involved  in  Time  and 
Space. 

Essentially  my  own  printed  records,  all  my  volumes,  are  doubt 
less  but  off-hand  utterances  f 'm  Personality,  spontaneous,  follow 
ing  implicitly  the  inscrutable  command,  dominated  by  that  Per 
sonality,  vaguely  even  if  decidedly,  and  with  little  or  nothing  of 
plan,  art,  erudition,  &c.  If  I  have  chosen  to  hold  the  reins,  the 
mastery,  it  has  mainly  been  to  give  the  way,  the  power,  the  road, 
to  the  invisible  steeds.  (I  wanted  to  see  how  a  Person  of  Amer 
ica,  the  last  half  of  the  ipth  century,  w'd  appear,  put  quite  freely 
and  fairly  in  honest  type.) 

Haven't  I  given  specimen  clues,  if  no  more?  At  any  rate  I 
have  written  enough  to  weary  myself — and  I  will  dispatch  it  to 
the  printers,  and  cease.  But  how  much — how  many  topics,  of 
the  greatest  point  and  cogency,  I  am  leaving  untouch'd ! 


PS  3?) 


